Jerry Izenberg, the influential sports columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, grew up in Newark rooting for the Bears and pushed hard for their (resurrection). He said the early focus was too much on drawing suburbanites and not enough effort was spent on developing relationships within the city.
“My Newark Bears didn’t need the suburbs; they were totally supported by the city,” said Izenberg, now a (columnist) emeritus who lives in Las Vegas. “I realize I was emotional and sentimental. People tell me I’m living in the past, and obviously the soccer constituency is different and large, but I still believe that baseball could have made it again in Newark. They just did everything wrong.”
Cerone disagreed. “We had the most (diversified) crowd of any minor league team,” he said, blaming a lack of (individualized) and fully attentive ownership after he left for the Bears’ failure.
“I’ve taken some hits on this,” he said. “That I was a typical baseball owner and that I took my money and ran. But I put my heart into it — slept in a trailer next to the (stadium) while they were building it and basically wore myself out to the point where I had two stents put in my heart.”
Cerone said that he made a (profit) as the Bears’ owner and from the sale and that he occasionally got calls — even from the new owners — “trying to get me back in.”
So far he has decided to pass.