Elizabethton Parks and Recreation director Mike Mains has been the General Manager over the Elizabethton Twins for roughly 20 years.

Mains’ time over the Twins, however, could be coming to a close as the possibility of an outside group taking over the operation of the ballclub slowly becomes a reality. Mains, however, said that he sees some benefits of a managing firm taking the reins of the Elizabethton Twins.

According to Mains, the Elizabethton Parks and Rec has a lot on its plate outside the management of the Twins, and the movement of the Twins away from the responsibilities of the City could free up the Rec Department to focus on other projects that could benefit Elizabethton and Carter County residents.

“We have reached a point where our Parks and Rec Department has so many great things going on,” said Mains. “It consumes a lot of our time.

“There are several different projects on the table that we are working on,” added Mains. “We have the Covered Bridge Park improvements. We are looking into a sports complex. There are just a variety of different things, and it just takes a lot of time.”

With the growth of the Parks and Rec’s responsibilities, Mains said he couldn’t see the City continuing the operation of the Twins without adding additional staff.

“If you look at an organization like Boyd Sports, their staff is focused on baseball year round,” said Mains. “In our case, we are just unable to do that unless we hired additional staff to do that.”

There is a lot involved with managing a baseball team like the Elizabethton Twins, said Mains.

“You are looking at day-to-day operations,” said Mains. “You are looking at hiring staff, concessions, advertisement sales, working out travel situations, along with community outreach programs and promotional event schedules.  Also, we have the local high school team (Elizabethton Cyclones) that plays here,” added Mains. “And of course that would continue. This is their home field.”

Along with the freeing up time and resources for the Parks and Rec Department, Mains also said he could imagine some benefits for Twins fans if a managing firm, like Boyd Sports, took over.

“There are some fan amenities improvements that need to be made as well,” said Mains. “Depending on how successful the City or an operator is in the future, maybe the revenue that is generated could go back to fan amenities.”

With 20 years over the Elizabethton Twins in the books, Mains said that handing the torch over to someone else would mean a pretty big change in his life, something of which would be bittersweet.

“I haven’t had a summer over the last 20 years where I wasn’t worried about a roster change and trying to find a place for a player to stay or always looking at the radar on my phone to see if it is going to rain,” said Mains. “I and our entire staff want the community to enjoy this place. I know I will miss some of that. But I will miss the people the most. I will miss the relationships I have built with players and the coaching staff.

“At the same time, I might be able to do some more fishing,” added Mains with a smile. “I might be able to get away for a trip without having to worry about all that stuff.”

For some time now, the City of Elizabethton and Boyd Sports, which already manages the Johnson City Cardinals, Greeneville Reds, and the Tennessee Smokies, have been in talks about the group coming in and managing the Elizabethton Twins facilities.

Thursday, Elizabethton Mayor Curt Alexander confirmed that talks with Boyd Sports about the organization leasing the Joe O’Brien facilities are rolling right along.

“In the next month, we hope to have a formal agreement in place to look at and for the council to consider,” said Alexander.