Carolina In Their Mind

[Sctvman]

The expansion of Major League Baseball to new markets has been a long thought process since 1998 when the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays became the 29th and 30th Major League clubs. The Montreal Expos moved out of Montreal to Washington; the A's moved from Oakland to Sacramento and eventually Las Vegas, while the Rays have been searching for a new ballpark in the Tampa Bay area.

There has been a lot of growth in the Sun Belt region over the last almost 30 years, but there is still only one Major League team in the region, the Atlanta Braves which have dominated the market since 1966. The goal is for an expansion to 32 clubs with one new in the American League and National League.

Many markets have been looked at, including Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon; Mexico City and Monterey, Montreal, San Juan, PR, and San Antonio, Texas.

Meanwhile, the state of North Carolina has been thought of as a growth region for decades. It is a fertile sports market and has been for decades with the ACC schools on Tobacco Road (Duke, North Carolina, NC State and Wake Forest). There are 19 Division I institutions in the state, 4th most behind California, New York, and Texas.

The metros of Charlotte, Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, and Raleigh/Durham have developed as a very large sports region over the past few decades. In 1988, the NBA's Charlotte Hornets became the first professional sports team in the Carolinas, grabbing sellout crowds at Charlotte Coliseum. In 1995 it was followed by the NFL's Carolina Panthers, who played at Clemson their first year before moving to Charlotte.

In 1997, the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes moved from Hartford and played two seasons in Greensboro before settling in Raleigh. In 2004 after the Hornets moved to New Orleans, the NBA gave Charlotte the 30th expansion team, originally called the Bobcats before being renamed the Hornets.

All of these teams have been successful in the region, winning playoff games, packing stadiums, and in the Carolina Hurricanes case, winning a Stanley Cup.

One thing though which the Carolinas is missing is a major league baseball team. Not without lack of trying though. In 1997, the Minnesota Twins nearly moved to the Triad, with Twins owner Carl Pohlad signing a letter of intent to sell the team to local businessman Don Beaver who would have moved the team to the Greensboro area, but a local referendum to fund a stadium failed.

Charlotte and Raleigh are both top 25 TV markets but how spread out the region is compared to metropolitan areas like Washington and New York where all the population is in one area has hurt the region's chances of earning a team.

North Carolina is a state of over 10 million people and is the largest state without a team.

[Sctvman]

The story of Colleen Haney was of someone who was an underdog story from the time she was born. She was born on February 15, 2001 in Ridgewood, New Jersey, only weighing 3 pounds and 7 ounces, born a month premature.

Growing up in the New York Tri-State area, she got experiences that others don't usually get. Her family all grew up as New York Mets fans, going back decades even though where she lives is generally a Yankees area. Her parents took her to Mets game from an early age. At five years old she attended multiple 2006 Mets playoff games, as her dad had a partial plan of tickets and took her.

She played baseball on her town Little League teams after she grew into an athletic force at a young age. Eventually softball was where she found her opportunity to shine.

Her dad worked in the technology sector in Manhattan and had a well-paying job there, her mom was a local middle school teacher. Eventually, as tech workers migrated to the area, the family moved to the Triangle in 2014 when he got a job at Lenovo.

Haney missed having her friends and going to baseball and football games in the New York area, but she eventually excelled in the well-known Wake County school system. Apex, where her family settled, is generally known as one of the best school systems in the state of North Carolina.

She had already participated in multiple geography and spelling bees in middle school, and started helping out in several on-campus activities in her 8th grade year. She was voted freshman class president at Apex High School, and was in the Student Council all four years of high school in addition to her duties on the softball field, where she played all different positions before eventually landing at 1st base.

She was in the top 1% of her class at Apex High School, and after hitting .300 on the softball field in her career, she had several offers to play in either Division II or Division III to continue in college. However, Haney was offered a full-ride scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, something very few students get, and she pounced on the opportunity and went to UNC.

She made it through most of her freshman year before COVID hit which changed her plan from wanting to become a teacher like her mom to going into business. She was admitted to one of the top undergraduate business schools in the nation and excelled in the program, getting a 3.9 GPA and before her senior year, she landed a prestigious internship with the Washington Nationals.

With the Nationals she worked with their analytics team to help develop strategies to improve their team on the field and also helped in their finance department. Haney also worked with UNC's athletic department as an intern helping at football games.

She graduated in May 2023 with a business degree and was hired by Queens Park Rangers FC to work in their analytics department, also selling tickets, which was a coup for someone who was just out of college.

[Sctvman]

London is more well-known as a city for football, with 16 professional clubs just in the metro itself along with innumerable semi-pro teams. However, as Americans have moved into the area, sports such as the National Football League, the NBA, NHL, and latest Major League Baseball have started footprints in the region.

MLB played host to the Yankees and Red Sox in 2019 at London Stadium, Cubs and Cardinals in 2023, and the Phillies and the Mets in 2024. Baseball interest was piqued throughout the nation, but it is still a very distant sport among everything else in this huge city.

The London Mets are looking to change that. The club is one of the most well-known in British baseball circles, with one of the larger fan bases and having won multiple British National Baseball League championships.

The splash however the team is making here is one of the biggest that you can make, hiring a woman not only to be the GM, but to manage a team in a professional league. Rachel Balkovec was the first female manager of a professional baseball team with the Tampa Tarpons recently, and Kim Ng was the first female GM with the Miami Marlins.

[Sctvman]

The story of Colleen Haney is one of someone who was just interested in baseball, in a city which has a relatively low interest in the sport. She looked up baseball teams in the city of London and found the London Mets. She called the team and asked if she could be a volunteer in addition to her job at QPR.

They obliged and soon she was helping to put on games selling tickets and promoting the club on social media posts. But none of the other workers knew the business acumen she had graduating from one of the premier business schools in the United States. She had also worked as an intern for the University of North Carolina Athletics which had provided her opportunities in major Division I sports in the United States.

Her responsibilities at the club grew throughout 2025, becoming the main PR person that press and journalists talked to. But she did not think that she would get into an even larger role heading into 2026, not only becoming the first women GM of a franchise in Great Britain but stepping up to become the manager of the club.

Haney hadn't played competitively since she was in high school graduating in 2019, but she still had it on the softball field, playing sometimes on a club team in college. Her owner, Charlie Hunter, asked if she would play, and after several hours of thinking, she said yes.

Haney would fill a role that was very rare in modern sports, fulfilling all 3 roles in the club, as a player, manager and GM. And all this at the ripe old age of 25 years old.

[AZTarHeel]

North Carolina native here ... lived in Apex briefly, went to UNC, will be following along!

[Sctvman]

The London Mets have assembled this roster so far as they prepare for the 2026 season in the British National Baseball League. Only playing 2 games a week on Sundays, this reduces the need for starting pitching as generally only 2 SPs are needed, and the rest of the roster can be replenished with relievers and position players.

[StLee]

Originally Posted by AZTarHeel

North Carolina native here ... lived in Apex briefly, went to UNC, will be following along!

NC resident here. Will also be following along, along with AZTarHeel's newest NC-based dynasty.

Funny thing is, I was thinking that if I had time away from my own dynasty to start a new one, I would make it expand MLB to my two states of residence, LA and NC.

[Sctvman]

London has the top batter in the British league in Quin Cotton and two of the top pitchers as well as the talent level in this league has slowly improved over the offseason. Guys are coming from all over the world instead of just British folks who are playing on Sundays while having day jobs the rest of the week.

[Sctvman]

One week into the Major League regular season, none other than the Colorado Rockies are the top team in the sport! And the Milwaukee Brewers have one tie to their record as they have won one game this year.

[WooBallFan43]

How the hell are ties in MLB?

[Sctvman]

I changed a rule so there would be ties in the Major Leagues after 15 innings. There usually would be less than 5 a season. I also changed the rules so there would be no runner on 2nd in extra innings like they have in the regular season.

[Sctvman]

Junior Caminero with a 3 homer game against the Cubs as the surprising Chicago White Sox are in first place in the American League Central. Only four days till the first London game, a doubleheader Sunday against the Herts Toucans.

[Sctvman]

The London Mets started their 25 game 2026 regular season with a bang on the bats. Making the trip up to Herts to face the Toucans on a Sunday, they played two of the longest games you'll ever see that only went 9 innings, at 4:51 and 4:44. Over 9.5 hours to play a doubleheader.