July standings report

Tonight it’s not just about the standings, there’s commentary below. Bear with me.

But first, it’s time to take a look at how my teams are doing.

The Shorebirds have one piece of good news. While they are last in the league in batting, they’re not last in the SAL North standings anymore as Lexington (the first half champion) has slipped below the 13-23 Delmarva mark (the Legends are 13-25.) But as it stands, the Lakewood BlueClaws are taking advantage of a relatively easy second half schedule to reach just past the midpoint of the second half with a 26-12 record. This puts Delmarva 12 games in arrears with only about 32 games to go. The BlueClaws are 5 clear of Lake County, who’s second at 20-16. In the middle, the remaining SAL North teams are tightly bunched 2 1/2 games apart – in order it’s Hickory, Greensboro, Hagerstown, and West Virginia. (The latter two are actually tied at 17-20.) On the south side, recent departee Augusta took 3 of 4 from us and is blowing away that division with a 30-8 record. With just over a month to go, it’s starting to look like a Lakewood-Lexington showdown for the North title while an all-Georgia South tilt would feature Rome and Augusta.

The rest of the season for the ‘Birds has a shortage of home contests. They’re off tonight as they’re en route to North Carolina for sets with Asheville and Kannapolis, then it’s home to face the West Virginia Power. That brief homestand rolls into their final 8 games outside Maryland, a roadtrip to Lake County and Lakewood. They close out the home season with Hagerstown and Lakewood before the last series across the bay in Hagerstown ends the campaign. All of these are 4 game sets.

Meanwhile, it looks like things are back to normal for my Toledo Mud Hens. After leading the IL West at the All-Star break, they’ve slipped back into the pack, now residing in third place behind both Indianapolis and Louisville. Their 57-53 record places them 3 1/2 behind the Indy Indians (Pittsburgh’s AAA affiliate who’s 59-48) and 1 1/2 games behind the top Cincinnati farm club (the Bats are 58-51.) But look for the Hens to go in the tank as they’ve announced the sale of playoff tickets beginning Thursday.

Toledo does get some advantages the remainder of the way, however. The schedulemaker was somewhat friendly to the Hens as they face Louisville 6 more times, all at home. Meanwhile, they face Indianapolis just 4 more times (including tonight and tomorrow in Indiana) with the last two at home. The Hens will see Columbus 12 times in that stretch, along with 12 more games against the whole of the South Division (4 with Richmond and Durham, 2 with Norfolk and Charlotte. Except for Charlotte, the South teams are all under .500.) But Louisville and Indianapolis see more of the South than the Hens do, which may be a benefit – plus they square off just 8 more times against each other.

Of course, then you have the mack daddy, the Detroit Tigers. With a 70-35 record going into tonight’s game at Tampa Bay, the Tigers stand atop the AL Central with a 7 1/2 game bulge over Chicago and 8 1/2 over Minnesota. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Tigers have a 95.7% chance of making the playoffs. A win tonight and the Tigers will equal last season’s victory total with 56 games to play. (Yes they did, routing Tampa Bay 10-4.)

The stretch before Labor Day does have possible landmines though. After finishing with Tampa Bay, the Tigers face the bitter rival Indians at home before a critical three-gamer against Minnesota. Then a huge six-game road trip against both colors of Sox (White then Red) looms. Doesn’t get much easier at home either as Texas and the White Sox invade for four games apiece. The month ends with another tough six-game trip to Cleveland and New York. Finally, Labor Day weekend begins a six game homestand against Los Angeles and Seattle. But no real breathers until September is a few days old.

So that is your standings report about the teams that matter. Now I’m going to write about something that’s relatively near and dear to my heart.

People who know me and my passionate love of baseball probably know that I’m a frequent patron of Perdue Stadium. So far this year I’ve made it to 23 games, which is about on pace with last year (think I was at 27 last season.) Despite all of my seasons in Toledo, I doubt I made it to many more than 100 Mud Hens games, most of which I attended at the old Skeldon Stadium during the 1980’s (before I was married.) In some respects then, our humble stadium is my second home.

Last night’s power fiasco made it clear that Perdue Stadium is overdue for some renovations. If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t have seen anything about it in the Daily Times. But the game started with the first base side’s concession stands on the disabled list due to a mechanical problem. They finally did get them fixed about the third or fourth inning, but then the scoreboard began to malfunction around the seventh inning.

But the coup de grace was a subtle “pop” that I heard which made me look and realize the entire second and third levels had lost power. This included all of the concession stands, restrooms, luxury suites, and press box. The final 3 1/2 innings were played (it was an 11 inning game we lost 8-5) with the only noise coming from the crowd (a pretty sizeable one that was plenty loud and spirited enough). They did eventually restore power to the second level but the luxury suites, press box, and scoreboard didn’t function the rest of the way. In the last inning they were giving away hotdogs, likely as an alternative to them spoiling.

However, the problems with the electrical system didn’t begin last night, for pretty much the last month the fans have done without at least some of the scoreboard and video board elements. This started with the heavy Fourth of July storm.

It seems to me that stadiums come due for renovations every 10 to 15 years. Obviously I was not here in 1996 when the stadium opened, but I have it on pretty good authority that the scoreboard and video board are original with Perdue. Electronic equipment, particularly that which sits in the elements, does have a limited life span.

But another question occurs to me – is the team in a sort of limbo because of offers to buy the club from Comcast? I’m of the thought right now that the Shorebirds management will likely get whatever repairs need to be done to get the stadium through the final 12 games this season, but any long-term fixes will not occur unless and until ownership is settled. More worrisome is a persistent drop in attendance.

In 2002, the Shorebirds drew 253,171 fans for 68 home games, or an average of just over 3,700 patrons each night. The total fell to 228,344 in 2003, rebounded slightly to 230,536 in 2004 (I believe this was the first year Comcast owned the club) but again slipped last season to 219,361 despite having a playoff team. This season, if the current average is maintained for the final 12 home games, we’ll have just over 207,000 pass through the turnstiles. (The Shorebirds have had some bad luck weatherwise, though, they’ve lost 5 of their 70 home dates this season.) Through 53 games, the total attendance mark stands at 168,872 – a shade under 3,200 per game.

Now because they have 5 fireworks games scheduled in August plus an appearance by the mascot Reggy, they might get enough behinds in the seats to pass last year’s total by a few thousand. But I think the Shorebirds need to work on ways to create a little more buzz, and one method would be to invest in items that make the fans’ experience more comfortable.

I’ve been to a number of minor and major league parks over the last half-dozen years and there’s items I’ve seen in and about them that I think would be a good fit for Perdue Stadium (and not cost a whole lot.) But they enhance the enjoyment of the game moreso than the between-innings antics do.

To me, the first order of business is (preferably) replacing the scoreboard and videoboard or at least giving them a major overhaul so they work properly. It would also be nice to have a smaller auxiliary scoreboard installed on the first base side between the upper and lower deck, this board would simply have the score, balls/strikes, and outs. This way folks on the third base side (like me in my usual place) could glance up to see the count while being able to watch the pitch on the way, rather than turn my head. Toledo actually installed one after the first season in their new stadium because the third base side fans complained about the lack of a second scoreboard.

Another nice touch would be to expand the TV service that exists in the luxury box areas and do a closed circuit broadcast to the concession stands so those waiting in line can still follow the action without turning around. The new stadium in Cincinnati has this feature at their upper deck stands as the concourse is below the highest seats. In some parks, they instead place certain food and pop vendors on the side of the concourse facing the field so one can buy his or her items without losing sight of the game. Toledo is one park that features this (so do Detroit and Indianapolis, among others.) You still can’t do items requiring heavy cooking this way, but ice cream and pop can be done thusly. If they’re going to revamp the electrical system, why not add that capacity?

I’d like to see our hometown team stay that way. We got our team from another city that didn’t support it when they had the chance, so it’s up to the fans to support the one we have. But Comcast, or whoever may become the owner of the club, needs to meet the fans at least halfway and improve the facilities that the team calls home.

And as a final P.S. – tell Cheap Channel to bring back the local bands for Thirsty Thursday next season. Whiskey and Cowboy are a pretty damn lame substitute.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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