The Arkansas Travelers will play their final home game of the 2026 season today at Dickey-Stephens Park. Those of us who follow Travelers baseball feared that a tradition dating back more than a century was coming to an end.

The Travelers' long-term lease at Dickey-Stephens runs out at the end of this season. Normally, a city doesn't wait until the last moment to finish negotiating a new lease. But North Little Rock Mayor Terry Hartwick, acting under the false assumption that his negotiating ability would cause Major League Baseball (MLB) to back off its demands for stadium improvements, decided to play a dangerous game of chicken.

The owners of the Travelers, Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), finally announced a 20-year lease agreement on Aug. 10. In the end, DBH and MLB got everything they wanted. The city will be responsible for capital improvements such as roof repairs, foundation issues, parking lots, plumbing, electrical systems, signage, the scoreboard, and concession fixtures.

North Little Rock taxpayers also will cough up about $10 million to install wells to prevent future sinkholes. That work could have been done for about half the cost had Hartwick acted years ago when MLB first told him that no lease could be signed until the sinkhole problem was fully addressed.

"DBH will pay the city $150,000 per year during the first five years of the contract, followed by a rent hike every five years of either four percent or the increase in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less," Daniel McFadin wrote for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "However, all stadium revenue will belong to the team, including ticket sales, licenses to suites, advertising and marketing revenue, naming rights, sales of concessions and memorabilia, and parking sales."

When the Travelers were locally owned, I spent a quarter of a century as a member of the board. For the final few years of local ownership, I was vice president of the club. I grew up attending games at Ray Winder Field in Little Rock and was pleased when general manager Bill Valentine asked me to serve. I was the youngest board member at the time.

Valentine, a Little Rock native, was an American League umpire from 1963-68. He became general manager in 1976. He had grown........

© Arkansas Online