MORGANTOWN — The New York-Penn League, a 14-team, short-season minor league, acknowledged today that it has looked into transferring a franchise here if the proposed stadium is built, but league president Ben Hayes told the Times West Virginian it is premature to be speculating on which franchise might move.

A one-time major league pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds, Hayes first expressed an interest in Morgantown as a potential New York-Penn franchise in February, right after WVU athletic director Oliver Luck proposed building a new stadium on the University Towne Center property to be shared with a minor league team.

He received permission from Pat O’Conner, president of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, to begin inquiries into such a move.

“I met with Oliver, I met with the developer, I met with state Sen. Bob Beach. I met with some of the council members. I was up there for the economic summit that occurred, trying to get an idea how the area does economically,” Hayes said.

“There’s a lot of that that goes into it, figuring out whether or not the market is going to fit the New York-Penn League long term.”

Hayes admitted he came away impressed.

“I can’t tell you how impressed I am. It’s a small market, there is no doubt about that. It’s not Staten Island or Brooklyn, but those aren’t typical for short-season clubs. Morgantown is typical of a short-season club’s city,” he said.

“I think it’s a good market,” Hayes continued. “Economically, I think it’s a stable market with growth potential. The people are very friendly, very sports oriented and very loyal to West Virginia University, and that’s a great thing.”

The New York-Penn League was founded in 1939 as the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League and was called the PONY League. It now stretches throughout the Northeast with teams in seven states, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont and Connecticut having franchises, in addition to New York and Pennsylvania.

The current 14 teams and their affiliations are:

• Brooklyn Cyclones, Mets

• Staten Island Yankees

• Hudson Valley Renegades, Tampa Bay

• Aberdeen IronBirds, Baltimore

• Auburn Doubledays, Washington

• Mahong Valley Scrappers, Cleveland

• Williamsports Crosscutters, Philadelphia

• Batavia Muckdogs, St. Louis

• Jamestown Jammers, Miami

• State College Spikes, Pittsburgh

• Lowell Spinners, Red Sox

• Tri-City Valley Cats, Houston

• Connecticut Tigers, Detroit

• Vermont Lake Monsters, Oakland

The idea of sharing a stadium with a university is something the NYPL has had good experiences with.

“There’s a lot of synergy that can be created by the partnership. We have one in Vermont, although they no longer have a baseball program. We have a team in Albany, N.Y., on a campus, that does well. The Lowell, Mass., team is located on a campus.

“We’ve been down this road before with universities and colleges. It’s one that works very well on the short-season level. It would not work well on a long-season level because the seasons overlap.

We started our season a week after the draft, which is the first week of June. They will not be playing anymore by the time we play.”

Hayes sees similarities between Morgantown and a number of the current franchises.

While the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently indicated that the Pirates could shift their franchise from State College, which has a very similar setup sharing a facility with the university, Hayes warned that was very premature.

“Any relocation is subject to a very complex process,” he said, noting that the Morgantown ball park does not yet even have financing passed. “It requires the review of the relocation by not only the league, which has to approve it first, but minor league baseball headquarters and then a review by Major League Baseball. They do not have to approve it but they have a veto right if it doesn’t comply with the rules of baseball and is not in the best interest of Major League Baseball.

I do not want to get into any speculation, whatsoever,” he continued. “At this point in time it’s not material.”

In fact, the NYPL does things differently than many other minor leagues in relocating franchises.

“We don’t choose the club until way down the road. Why? There’s no need,” he said. “For example, we had a recent relocation from Olena, N.Y., to Norwich, Conn. We went in there, negotiated the lease, it went all the way in front of the city council, was voted on and approved. It wasn’t until a week or so later that an application was filed and a club was announced.

“There’s absolutely nothing to be gained by naming a club early. If all the ducks aren’t a row you ostracize communities. During the process I think there were four or five clubs named in the media as going to Norwich.”

There certainly are many candidates to move. The league has some teams with older stadiums in need of repair. Seating capacities range from 2,600 in Batavia to 7,500 in Brooklyn, which is managed, by the way, by former Pirates’ coach under Jim Leyland, Rich Donnelly.

Donnelly’s Brooklyn team led the league in attendance last year with an average of 7,002 while Aberdeen, Md., averaged 6560 and it went down to Batavia, N.Y., at 1,058, Jamestown, N.Y.,  1,137, Connecticut, 1,780 and Williamsport 1,841.

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Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com. Follow on Twitter @bhertzel