Tom O’Brien’s decision to pursue the dream of bringing professional baseball to Plymouth was a key development in the history of America’s Hometown.

O’Brien, the Democratic state representative from Kingston, teamed up late last year with a group of local investors to form Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics LLC. The group’s stated mission is to bring an expansion minor-league baseball team to Plymouth.

If Bay Colony is successful and Plymouth gains a professional baseball team, then it could possibly reshape the town’s national image into something more than just the landing place of the Pilgrims and the home of Plymouth Rock.

The group announced its intentions at a Nov. 7, 2005, press conference. No surprise there: The news was leaked to the media in late October. What was surprising, however, was the depth of the group’s plan and the progress it had made prior to that November afternoon toward achieving its goals.

Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics has a solid business plan. It has a team, complete with name and logo, which it hopes to put on the field in time for the start of the 2007 season. The independent-league ball club, dubbed the Plymouth River Eels, would not be affiliated with Major League Baseball.

Bay Colony plans to build a 5,500-seat, multi-purpose stadium on 28.1 acres of land next to the Colony Place shopping plaza in northwest Plymouth. The project, which would include a picnic pavilion, banquet facility, and indoor athletic fields for soccer and lacrosse, would cost an estimated $14 million to $16 million.

The group signed an agreement in early January with Pierre Coll, a prominent Plymouth developer, to purchase the acreage targeted for the stadium site.

Bay Colony has done its homework. It recently eliminated a restaurant component that was part of the original stadium plan after it became clear too many restaurants are going up at Colony Place. Instead, the group has opted to develop a 10,000-square-foot office building where the restaurant was projected to go. This is a wise decision, as Plymouth has a huge need for more office space.

Bay Colony has also teamed up with experienced architectural and construction firms to design and build the River Eels’ stadium.

D’Agostino Izzo Quirk Architects, the same outfit that helped design Fenway Park’s Green Monster seats and other stadium improvements, was hired to produce conceptual designs for the Plymouth stadium.

Bay Colony has tapped Boston-based Payton Construction Co. to build the stadium, which will feature 20 luxury boxes. The firm also built stadiums for the Brockton Rox and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats minor-league ball clubs.

Best of all, Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics isn’t looking for public handouts. Officials from the group have made it clear the stadium project will be self-financed, and they are very optimistic they will raise the capital needed to move forward.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” Michael Rothberg, the group’s vice president of business development, told me last week. He declined to identify Bay Colony’s source of capital, but said the group expects to meet its financial obligations.

Rothberg also revealed the group is pursuing sponsorship deals with local, regional and national companies, including naming rights to the stadium.

“I can’t get into specifics about who we’re talking with, but it could be someone local,” he said.

Perhaps Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics is negotiating a stadium-naming-rights agreement with Entergy Nuclear, owner of Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Plymouth. How does “Entergy Field” or “Entergy Park” sound? No doubt the locals would refer – affectionately, of course – to the stadium as “the Nuke.”

Rothberg added the group also plans to hold a public naming contest for the club’s future mascot.

This is all very good news for Plymouth. The importation of America’s Pastime to America’s Hometown would surely provide a boost to the local economy. Need proof? The four Bay State municipalities that gained minor-league baseball teams in recent years – Brockton, Worcester, Lowell and Lynn – are all enjoying economically beneficial relationships with their teams.

“It’s been a tremendous success for our city,” Worcester Mayor Timothy Murray said last week during a Plymouth forum that addressed the impact of minor-league baseball teams on their host communities. “Clearly, minor-league baseball has been good for (Worcester).”

The city landed the expansion Tornadoes in 2005, ending a 71-year absence without professional baseball. Baseball in Worcester was made possible by UniverCity, a unique partnership forged between the City of Worcester and the College of the Holy Cross. The Tornadoes play their home games at Hanover Park at Fitton Field on the Holy Cross campus.

“The UniverCity partnership gave us the opportunity to work with the College of the Holy Cross,” Murray said. “Fitton Field is a great facility, and it wasn’t being used during the minor-league baseball season. We saw an underutilized stadium that was perfect for minor-league baseball.”

The team, the city and Holy Cross officials hammered out an agreement that resulted in a 10-year stadium lease for the Tornadoes and $5 million in improvements for Fitton Field, including the addition of lights.

Plymouth has an even better opportunity than what was presented to Worcester. Think about it: a privately funded, multipurpose stadium, convention center and indoor sports complex, all of which would fill a glaring need for larger exhibition space in this growing town. Minor-league baseball would also give families from Plymouth and the surrounding communities something to do during the summer months, while encouraging out-of-town visitors to stick around an extra night before moving on to their next destination.

But here’s the kicker: Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics is determined to land a team, no matter where it plays its games. The group, which still needs permits to build the stadium at Colony Place, is scheduled to appear before the Plymouth Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals in the next few weeks – formal steps in the local permitting process.

Rothberg said if Bay Colony Baseball & Athletics is denied by the ZBA, the permit-granting authority in this case, then it will most likely take the River Eels somewhere else. Right now, it appears the group has plenty of suitors outside of Plymouth.

“Yes, we’ve received strong interest from a number of communities that would love to have us,” he said. “Places like New Bedford, Fall River and Boston have all inquired about the River Eels. Of course, we want to make this work in Plymouth. But we have a deadline to make – in this case, the 2007 season.”

Chris Nelson covers local, regional and national business issues. Reach him by telephone at (508) 746-5555, ext. 419, or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it