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News Releases
July 27th, 2008
Daytona Cubs' run in area a bit of a miracle
July 2nd, 2007
10KLF Supports the Arts, Local School and Student Musicians
February 9th, 2006
The Human Fund donates $150,000.00
August 18th, 2005
Cubs Break Single-Season Attendance Record
August 18th, 2005
10,000 Lakes Festival Reviewed by Glide Magazine
August 14th, 2005
New Foundation Backs School Arts Program
July 27th, 2000
Businessman Goes to Bat for His Dream
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by Ken Willis
Daytona Beach News-Journal Online
The Daytona Cubs are about to enter the final month of another baseball season. Some of you get out to the ballpark every chance you get. Others not so much, but you promise yourselves to make a better effort because you always enjoy it.
Even if you let down on your attendance for one summer, you hardly panic because, hey, there's always next April. Right about the time Spring Break is winding down, another Daytona Cubs season begins, and not long after the kids go back to school, the local baseball team begins packing its gear for winter.
We take it for granted, and that's the highest compliment you can give to a minor-league baseball franchise that's been part of the local scene for 16 seasons now. (Yes, time flies, but that 16-year Cubs affiliation is by far the longest in a Daytona baseball history that dates back to 1920.)
Quite amazing because, trust me, when it comes to sports-related ventures in this town, nothing is taken for granted.
The latest reminder came Saturday with an item in these pages about the Daytona Beach ThunderBirds, who ended their indoor-football season last night on the road. The T'Birds, like the Daytona Beach Hawgs and Thunder before them, are gone. With a seemingly steady and well-funded ownership group, they still couldn't make the Ocean Center logistics (dates, rent, etc.) work, and hopefully that'll finally end any infatuation with the Ocean Center as a home to sporting franchises.
It almost surely will -- right up until someone comes up with the next can't-miss idea.
DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
The Daytona Cubs' success wasn't exactly guaranteed from the start. Original owner Jordan Kobritz opened the doors six weeks prior to the 1993 opener -- a laughably short amount of time to prepare for a baseball season. During his eight seasons of ownership, relationships with city officials and some local businesses weren't always love fests.
But Kobritz, with a unique and tireless style, kept the franchise alive and profitable, and it paid off with the 2000 sale to Andy Rayburn's group. Since then the Cubs have created perhaps the only Florida State League experience that resembles those in regions (outside Florida) where minor-league ball is a big deal.
Consider all that's come and gone around here in the 15-plus years since the Daytona Cubs first took the field:
· Minor-league hockey (three seasons), indoor football (four seasons) and indoor soccer (oh, about an hour-and-a-half) at the Ocean Center.
· A short-term attempt at women's football, something called the Daytona Beach Hooters basketball team and some form of junior hockey -- all at assorted facilities around town.
· And maybe most depressing, a six-year run for an LPGA tournament (in the hometown of the tour's headquarters) that ended in 1999 due to financial handicaps.
Bobby Ginn is trying to buck that trend with a pair of golf tournaments (PGA Champions Tour and, beginning this October, regular PGA Tour) in Flagler County. Maybe geography -- being on the fringes of Daytona Beach, not in it -- along with any sign of life in the housing market, will be his friend.
Now consider all the other restaurants, retailers and building projects that have come and gone since April 1993. Consider how impressive it is in these fickle, short attention-span times for anything to succeed for 16 years.
Toss in the fact it's a sports franchise here, and you realize the Daytona Cubs might be more than just a local staple. More like a local miracle.
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