Picks and pans from a Shorebird fan – 2017 edition

If you remember last year, the big buzz around Perdue Stadium was the replacement of all the seats with brand new seats, which permitted an upgrade of the old bleachers to regular seats (and frankly made the ballpark look better.) While I was worried about the size of the seats, for the most part my fears went unrealized. I’m not sure about the “cushy” seats that make up the front rows and all the 300 “luxury” level, though. Maybe it’s the cupholders, but those seem slightly smaller.

But these new upper seats are priced at a reasonable $9 and the vantage point is good…considering you are maybe 12 feet farther and perhaps 4 to 5 feet higher at the closest point above the action for $4 less, that’s not a bad deal. (Not to mention a $2 Monday, where the difference is $11.) If you prefer shade or a high perspective, these seats are available for that, too, and they are way more comfortable than the bleachers were.

They also finally put in the new videoboard, as promised. It’s a great addition, and they were smart to place it where they did because more people sit on the third base side (so it’s straight in front of them.) It’s a good-sized board, and as the season went on they began to utilize it a little better. But it would be nice to have a couple more pieces of information like pitch count and more specific info on the batters (i.e. singled and scored in first, grounded out in third, flied out in fifth, etc.) Honestly, I don’t need to see for the tenth time that one player likes lobster or one of the other players was a black belt. I think as the video operators get more experience, we may see things like replays and more in-game highlights, too.

And please tell Pohanka to invest a little more in making their cheesy car race more interesting. (You know, it’s intriguing how much the local auto dealers spend on promoting themselves at Shorebirds games.) Same goes for Perdue, because the chicken needs to do something else.

So that was two of the three things I thought they had on the “to-do” list last offseason, but as it turned out the 360-degree concourse was pushed back to happen this off-season. One thing I found out about it was that it won’t be as high as I thought it would be because they will use the outfield fence as a railing. Now this could be good but it may be problematic because the better solution would be to have a fence where people can be seated and still see the game. Since the Shorebirds employ opaque sponsor advertising signs that idea goes away.

I’m also hearing that it will be a narrow concourse, more or less the width of the aisles which go around the space between the lower and upper reserved seats, which is maybe about 10 feet. That doesn’t seem like enough to employ the hot dog or dippin’ dots stands I suggested last season, let alone a beer seller. Hopefully I misunderstood the intent and the concourse will be more like 14 to 16 feet wide, at least in some spots.

Overall, though, I had my share of picks for the season. I suppose the one major pan that I have is in the food, which doesn’t seem to be all that great in either selection or quality. There needs to be a little more creativity, but then I’ve noticed that some of the stands that used to be there aren’t operated anymore. (For example, wasn’t there an angus stand along the first base side for about three seasons? Don’t recall that being there this year. Come to think of it, I believe they sold some other exotic thing there – nuts maybe? – for a couple seasons before that.)

Maybe it’s Delmarva and we just don’t have the sophisticated palate, but I think the reason some things don’t sell is that people don’t want to spend $8-10 on something they’re not sure they will like. Hot dogs, chicken, and pizza are reasonably safe choices. But why couldn’t we borrow an idea from other parts of the food service business and have homestand specials on the less mainstream items? For example, maybe instead of selling an Angus burger for $8, for one homestand they could make it a $5 deal. They do this with $2 hot dogs and Pepsi on Mondays, but why limit it there?

And now that they have the video people watching the games, it’s time to bring the feed into the restrooms so people can keep up with the action. At one time they had the audio feed of the broadcast in there but that’s gone by the wayside, too. You may try to go between innings, but sometimes nature calls when there’s only one out.

Out of an attendance of 207,131 – slightly less than last year, but based on one fewer opening so their average increased by 19 folks a game to 3,236 – my share is about 16 or 18. But having done this for so long I think I have a pretty decent idea of crowdthink, just like I have a reasonably good idea of the strike zone from my seat’s vantage point because I’ve sat there for so long.

There’s something that keeps the Shorebirds in an extremely narrow band of attendance year after year. (Since 2014, the range of average attendance has been within the 19-person difference from this year to last. Since 2010 it’s been in the 3,200 to 3,300 range in all but one year, 2011.) While we had a tiny bit of Tebow effect this season (for two games, with him only appearing in one) and benefited from the first rehab stints in three seasons, especially Chris Davis in July, that seemed to be offset by some less-attended fireworks nights and iffy weather all summer. Unfortunately, it’s been so long since we’ve had a consistently competitive team that it’s sort of an unknown how that would affect us. (Our last playoff appearance was in 2005, which is the longest losing streak in the SAL – in the meantime Augusta, Asheville, and the former Savannah Sand Gnats have made five trips, while Hickory, Greensboro, Lakewood, West Virginia, and Hagerstown have punched a playoff ticket four times. Lexington has a drought one season shorter than ours, but everyone else still in the league has participated at least twice.)

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like the Shorebirds are going anywhere, as their attendance runs about the middle of the pack in the SAL despite being one of the small-market teams. But on a per-game basis, it’s actually the lowest among Oriole affiliates. I think we can do better, and maybe my suggestions will help a little.

So ends my Shorebirds coverage for the season. I’ve also updated my Shorebird of the Week tracker so that’s good until the Arizona Fall League season gets underway in the next few weeks. The next time you’ll see coverage unless something major breaks is when I induct my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame Class of 2017 in December. As of right now that class consists of Stefan Crichton, Michael Ohlman, Josh Hader, Jimmy Yacabonis, Nicky Delmonico, and Chance Sisco.

One thought on “Picks and pans from a Shorebird fan – 2017 edition”

  1. agreed that the new videoboard is a great improvement also agree that the food service really suffered in 2017 compared with prior years – some nights i just had a soft pretzel for dinner.

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