For nearly 40 years, Craig Stein has been the owner of the Reading Phillies, now the Reading Fightins. Stein announced that he is stepping away from the team and has sold the Fightins to Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH), a group with a quickly growing array of minor league teams under their ownership. The Fightins are the first of the Phillies minor league affiliates to be owned by DBH.

The team will not be relocating, will remain a Phillies Double-A affiliate, and will retain all of the front office staff, including GM Scott Hunsicker, who is in his 34th season with the team. Other details of the sale, including what DBH paid for the team, was not disclosed, but given the team’s strong community ties, long time affiliation with the Phillies, the recent stadium upgrades, and the valuation of similar teams that have recently been sold, a good guess would be between $10-million and $20-million.

The ballpark was built in 1950 and served as home to the Reading Indians and Reading Red Sox. In 1967, the team moved to the Eastern League and changed their name to the Reading Phillies to mark their affiliation with the Philadelphia Phillies. The connection with the Phillies ties the record for the longest affiliation in Minor League Baseball. Prior to the 2013 season, the Reading Phillies – who also went by the moniker of the R-Phils – were rebranded to become the Reading Fightins and are also referred to as the Reading Fightin’ Phils. There have been major renovations and updates to the ballpark over the years with the addition of state of the art clubhouses, new bullpens, a larger and higher quality video board, and a full event center beyond the outfield fence. Now called FirstEnergy Stadium, the ballpark was initially known as Reading Municipal Memorial Stadium and became GPU Stadium in 2000 after GPU, Inc. purchased the naming rights. A merger between GPU, Inc. and FirstEnergy a year later brought about the current name of the stadium.

DBH owns over 40 minor league teams including the Double-A Harrisburg Senators, an affiliate of the Washington Nationals, and the Scranton-Wilkes/Barre RailRiders, the New York Yankees Triple-A franchise. Stein is part owner of the Phillies Triple-A affiliate the Lehigh Valley IronPigs along with business partner Joe Finley. Stein and Finley purchased the Ottawa Lynx team in anticipation of building what is now Coca-Cola Park and moving the team to the Lehigh Valley. The stadium and move of the franchise was completed for the 2008 season. There is no word on whether Stein will retain his ownership portion of the IronPigs.

At one point, Stein also had a controlling ownership stake in what is now the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, the Phillies High-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. Stein sold his portion of the team to Shore Town Baseball, LLC in 2017 and the team was later rebranded as the Jersey Shore BlueClaws in 2021. The Low-A Clearwater Threshers have been owned by the Philadelphia Phillies since their inception in 1985 with the city of Clearwater, FL serving as the Phillies spring training complex.