Cleveland, Ohio – August 5th, 2030:

As a fan, it is difficult to watch, I won’t lie. Our Longshoremen are currently on track to have their franchise’s worst season in team history. With 52 games left, Canton needs to lose 28 games to tie a franchise record 102 losses achieved back in 2026, 29 to set the record. While this season they have already lost ⅔ of their games, losing a little more than half of their remaining games only seems inevitable.

The team also continues to struggle as their pitching is regressing for their 4th straight season, putting Wayne McCormick’s short two year stint as Pitching Coach in Canton in jeopardy. His contract is up at year’s end and it would be a tough sell to for GM Michael Czosnyka to consider extending him.

We questioned Czosnyka’s promotion of Edward Allen from SS-A ball Akutan straight to Canton, and his results have been about what you would expect. Allen is not ready for the big leagues and doesn’t have his hitters ready game to game.

Throw in GM Michael Czosnyka’s handling of the rosters, and quick trigger finger to dump anyone of worth in Canton and you can’t really argue Canton is doing anything besides alienating its fanbase and driving the team further into irrelevance. Canton does not deserve to be another Yuma, the fans deserve better. GM Czosnyka continues to spend more time out of the office, occasionally joining owner William Marsten as they gallivant around the globe with Gloucester’s Wendell Hart, or seen wandering the city’s street food vendors gorging himself.

Clearly management does not only not have the team’s best interest at heart, they plain don’t have any idea what they are doing. Or.. do they?

Ticket prices have been on the climb for a couple seasons, 2028 and 2029, when we saw prices rocket up to $23 or more on the low end. In 2030, ticket prices dropped 16% down to $19.50 for the cheap seats. Is GM Czosnyka actually thinking about the fans? Season ticket sales rose 44% from 2029 to 2030 with the lowering of prices, despite the team fielding what can easily be argued is a worse team this year. Attendance is actually up, an astounding 59%! Attendance averages of ~10k more per game put us at 27k on average per home game in 2030, compared to only 17k in 2029, showing an increase in gate revenues so far of ~34% this season.

With 52 games to go, Canton has already surpassed last year’s attendance numbers by almost 200k. So are they actually doing something right? Fans seem less interested in the product on the field in Canton, yet they still make it to the games in droves with friendly ticket prices and better food options in the park.

The team also has the 3rd best cost efficiency per Win in the league at only $942k per win. GM Czosnyka, despite removing anyone worth a lick of talent in 2029, payroll has dropped from a whopping $129 million in 2029 to just slated $53 million in 2030. This is set to decline even further next season.

GM Czosnyka has put a new focus on the youth movement, more than tripling the Scouting and Player Development budgets for 2030.  The minor leagues are now chock full of young guys worth keeping an eye on in this rapid rebuild. Arms like Atasuke Inoue, Jorge Lorenzo, Jason Baker who seems to be a shoe in for Canton’s Minor League Player of the Year this season, and Pete Blaqueiere to name a few. Bats like Javier ‘Pokey’ Aguilar, Tony ‘Boy Scout’ Jarvis, and Steve Overgaag are reinjecting Canton with some much needed hope for things to come.

It’s been very much a ride of highs and lows, and no better seen than inside the halls of Svab Memorial itself. As promised, I will be releasing collected notes and comments provided from our inside voice in Canton to better understand what it’s been like from within the organization. So don’t make up your mind about how Canton is doing just yet.

– Damson Actinon, Canton Port Times