Rev effect hurts in Harrisburg

Editor’s Note: This story, which examines the Revolution’s effect on the Harrisburg Senators, originally ran in Thursday’s York Dispatch. Another story outlining the Revs’ attendance fortunes will run here Friday. 

It took close to four decades for York to land another professional baseball team after the York Pirates left town in 1969.

And with each year that passed, another obstacle got in the way of the effort.

Stadium location. Escalating costs. Political debate. All were roadblocks that were finally pushed aside when the York Revolution opened the doors to Sovereign Bank Stadium last June.

But one of the biggest obstacles along York’s journey to bring a pro baseball team back to its city rests about 25 miles north up I-83 — the Harrisburg Senators.

The Senators’ ownership blocked former York Mayor Charlie Robertson’s efforts to bring an affiliated team to York in the mid-1990s, and officials from Harrisburg and York spent years trying to negotiate an agreement, as mandated by Major League Baseball rules.

York finally got around the dispute between the two cities by welcoming the independent Revolution to town.