Recently with some time off, a couple friends and I ventured to PNC Field and Coca-Cola Park to check them out and scout the Yankees and Phillies prospects working their way up. Our first trip was to PNC Field, home of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees. Originally called Lackawanna County Stadium, it was the home field of the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons, from 1989-2006. As a kid, my father, being a diehard Phillies fan took me to see them play on a weekly basis in the summer. I remember it being one of the coolest places to go around my hometown of Wilkes-Barre. On any given sunny day, you could pull into the ballpark and find families and other groups tailgating along the big rocks on the exterior of the parking lot. With four or five bucks in your pocket, you could enjoy the game in the metal bleachers down the left and right field lines or for a couple dollars more, you could sit in the orange upper deck seats. Concessions were reasonably priced. There were promotions almost every game. I remember one game they gave away 10,000 free hot dogs. I still have a Red Barons wooden bat they gave away on Bat Day. Every summer, they had at least one baseball clinic on the field where you could get autographs and baseball instruction from all your favorite players on the team. As the years passed and technology advanced, you could watch the game live from a center field camera with audio on any TV in the Stadium Club and get instant replays on the big screen behind the center field wall. Any family or group of any income level could enjoy a night of Red Barons baseball and not put a hole in their wallet. Average attendance was around 7,000 while the Barons were in town. Fast forward 5 years of Yankees ownership and the average attendance this year as of last month is 2,808. That's good for 13th out of 14 teams in the International League. I think I can speak for most of us who grew up in this area and had the opportunity to attend many Red Barons games when I say the present day PNC Field is nowhere near what it used to be when we all enjoyed going there and seeing our favorite local mascot, the Grump.
Here's why:
Ticket Prices: $14 for the green seats downstairs, $12 for the orange seats (used to be the metal bleachers), and $10 for the orange upper deck seats which are only available on weekends. Parking is "free" now.
The Parking is not free. It's included in the ticket now. The Red Barons always charged for parking. It was usually five bucks and my dad would always park across the street to negate that cost. Wouldn't lowering the ticket prices and charging for parking appeal more to the supposed local Yankee fan base? They'd see 5 or 7 dollars for a ticket and 5 bucks for parking. This would make fans want to carpool more. Say you have a family of 5 or a group of 5 friends go up together. The cost of each person in the car to go to the game and sit in the upper deck would be 6 dollars. A dollar each for the parking fee and five dollars for the game ticket. I'm no economics or business major but that definitely sounds more appealing to me. How about you?
Boring Concourse: You walk around the concourse now, you feel like you're about to walk in a funeral parlor. There seems to be less concessions than I remember. It used to very lively. I like that they have Revello's Old Forge Pizza up there now but there's nothing else special or unique that makes you want to wander around in-between innings and see what else there is to offer. The cheapest beer is $5.50 which is not surprising but how about adding a variety to choose from besides the standard selection from your sponsor, Budweiser. I'm not saying import beers from everywhere. How about adding a few local flavors i.e. Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre?
Revamp the Stadium Club (now called Legends): On Red Baron Gamedays you were lucky to get a seat in there let alone a window table where you had a clear view of the game. This week, my dad, his friend, and I walked in there well after the game started and got a window table without waiting. The Red Barons used to charge a general admission ticket to go in the Stadium Club during the game. There is no such charge now. We walked in, had dinner, and a few two dollar Buds for the price it would've cost us to buy regular game tickets and maybe two beers. Then the last couple innings we watched the game at the bar. The bartender asked for last call at 10:30, maybe a half hour after the game ended. I'd understand if they'd want to close earlier when the team is about go on the road after the game but they weren't. My dad and his friends always tell me how the Red Baron players used to come and mingle with fans in the Stadium Club after the game and it would be open much later. There was also no game audio on inside during the game because they've been waiting a long time for their audio system to be fixed. There is video of the game on the TVs inside but you can only see the press box view from behind home plate which makes it harder to tell what's going on in the game especially with no audio.
Why is the home dugout on the third base line?
In most, but not all ballparks the home team dugout is on the first base line. The Red Barons were always in the first base dugout. Their clubhouse was right next to the Stadium Club. Now it's the opposite. When I walked out of Legends the other night with my Dad, there were hoards of Phillies fans waiting for the IronPigs to come out of the Clubhouse. I should've walked over to the other side of the stadium to see if there was a soul waiting for the Yanks outside their clubhouse.
Instant Replay No More!
The big screen behind the center field wall that used to show replays is no longer used. It was blank the whole game. The other screen they do use next to the scoreboard is not very visually pleasing either. It gets blurry at times when you're trying to read the lineups and boxscore.
In-Game Entertainment: Average at best
They do a few different things in-between innings to try to get the fans involved but they can still do a lot more. They need to make it a more fun, exciting atmosphere if they ever want the attendance to be more than the maybe one or two thousand people in the crowd when we were there.
Why the Yankees are allowing it to be like this now:
The Yankees are cutting their losses. Even though I think this is a stupid business move, they are trying to make the most money they can during the week by keeping the upper deck closed and forcing fans to buy the more expensive tickets. That way they don't have to open concession stands and clean up after fans upstairs when they know their average attendance won't even fill the seats downstairs. Less concessions means less food to buy and less labor. I don't think I saw any workers walking around the stands offering beer, hot dogs, etc. I assume the big screen is really broke and they aren't going to spend the money to fix it or they won't spend the money to operate it if it really does work. Replacing the metal bleachers with regular orange seats was dumb in my opinion but I guess if you're going to charge higher ticket prices, a more comfortable seat would be nice?
Why are they cutting their losses now?
In May, Lackawanna County officials announced that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett had approved $20 million for a major renovation of PNC Field. This sealed a deal county and Yankees officials unveiled last November that would sell the Triple-A franchise to SWB Yankees for $14.6 million, ensure the sport's presence here for at least 30 more years, and spend $40 million to rebuild PNC Field from the ground up.
My hope and belief is that the Yankees are saving money in every area they can now so they can invest it all in the new stadium which has no timetable for construction and eventual re-opening. My only question about all this is where is this so-called Yankee fan base in Northeastern Pennsylvania? I told my Dad that I think this area is 60 % Phillies fans and 40% Yankees fans at most. Even if that is true, you'd think more of their fan base would come out in droves on these nice summer nights to support their team who as of today are in 2nd place in their division, 3.5 games behind the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies).
I'll have my review of Coca-Cola Park in the next few days. Hope you enjoyed my analysis, got some insight, or maybe even learned something new. Please feel free to comment or share stories from your experiences up there.
T.G.I.F! Enjoy the weekend!
BMart
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
9 Years Later...Still Army Strong and All I Can Be!
Nine years ago yesterday, I raised my right hand and joined the PA Army National Guard at the bright, young age of 17. Coincidentally, it was also my sister's 19th birthday so every year since then I fondly remember and celebrate the day. I was going through my junior year of high school when a recruiter by the name of Sgt.J.P. Karpovich gave a recruiting presentation in my history class one day. He had previously called my house looking to talk to me about the benefits of joining the Guard but I wasn't home at the time and said he'd call back. He didn't before the presentation and I called him out on it when he asked if any of us had received phone calls. He gave a good sales pitch in the class that intrigued not only myself but my good buddy and classmate Ed Brown, who joined and served with me. Sgt. Karpovich did finally call me and the next thing I knew I was taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test to determine if I was eligible to join. I did. My mom and dad gave the parental consent and I signed an initial six-year contract. As it did then and as I look back now, the decision to join made sense for me. I was always interested in the military. I used to watch old war flicks and talk about the military all the time with my grandfather, an Army Vet who did a tour in Germany in the 50's. I also wanted to go to college but not burden my parents with the cost or put myself in debt from college loans. By being a soldier in good standing in the PA Army National Guard, you have the opportunity to continue your education at many colleges in Pennsylvania tuition-free, and many others at a much lower cost than the average college student pays to go there. You also get a monthly stipend called the G.I. Bill for your living expenses. Count Me In!!! I couldn't tell you how many times during my college career someone said to me how fortunate I was to have this benefit. It required a commitment that initially took me away from my friends and family for two summers. The first summer was after my junior year when I went to Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. The second was after my senior year for Advanced Individual Training (A.I.T) at Fort Gordon, Georgia. This was for the job I'd be doing one weekend a month and two weeks every summer in the Guard for the duration of my contract. After returning at the end of August, I originally had planned on attending Temple University in the spring of 2004 to study sports journalism. Little did I know by the end of October 2003, my unit was being alerted of a pending deployment to the Middle East at the beginning of 2004. My section chief called to tell me the news while I was working at Schiel's Family Market. They were initially looking for volunteers. It gave me a very nervous feeling at first but we talked about it and by the end of conversation I was telling him to put my name on the list. My reasoning was that I'd rather see myself go then a guy who had a wife, kids, and a full-time job. I was a soon-to-be 19-yr-old kid who really didn't fully understand what I was committing myself to. As it turns out, I probably would've have been picked or as we call it "volun-told" to go on the deployment anyway. They needed a certain amount of troops for the mission and I was a young, fit, healthy, and trained soldier with nothing that might hold me back. I tell everyone that my tour of duty in Iraq was a real learning experience for me. It made me appreciate life more than ever before. I learned to treasure the little things in life that so many others don't have or don't even have access to. I learned to cherish every minute with my friends and family and just really enjoy life and make the best of any situation. Whether you are for or against the war, the support for us was overwhelming and something those of us who have served overseas will never forget. One of my favorite pictures and one that gave me more inspiration while I was over there was this pic I found in one of Saddam's palaces. Just like in high school when I went to Honduras to help build schoolhouses and other buildings for Honduran children and later in college when I volunteered to help with the Penn State Dance Mara(THON), which raises funds to help kids fight cancer, I can say that my service there was for a better future for those kids we saw every day waving and cheering for us along the roads of Iraq. Now that our presence there is slowly coming to an end, I just hope that the investment we made in money, troops, and time and the toll on everyone involved especially those who lost loved ones in the line of duty and our veterans who didn't come back the same whether physically or mentally, will lead to a better, brighter, safer future for Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.
By the time I returned home, I had become very interested in government and politics and decided I wanted to study political science. I was also being lobbied by friends from home who were studying at Penn State to go there too. I always loved Penn State but wanted to go away somewhere to school and didn't want to start at one of their branch campuses. While I was finishing up my time in Iraq, I applied to Penn State's Main Campus and with a great recommendation behind it from my high school guidance counselor and friend, I was accepted and started in the fall of 2005. By this time, my friends attending Penn State were all juniors and here I come starting my freshman year as a 20-year-old Army Veteran. Honoring my commitment to the Guard, I made the two hour ride home from school one weekend a month and two weeks every summer to serve with my unit. Although many times it took me away from my new friends, my fun life as a student, and my second home in Happy Valley, I was also able see my family and friends at home more than many other students away at school. During my time at Penn State, many soldiers in our unit deployed again multiple times with other units. They looked for volunteers again but this time I said no. I wanted to finish my college education before committing myself to any kind of tour of duty that would further delay my education and my life.
Prior to starting at Penn State, I went to the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC) early in the summer and earned my promotion to Sergeant. I'll always thank my recruiter and great friend J.P. for putting me in a duty position where I could move up in rank very quickly. I have a been a Staff Sergeant since late 2006 and cannot thank my fellow soldiers, peers, and unit leadership enough for their guidance, tutelage, and patience with me during my career. While having been a non-commissioned officer (NCO) for almost six years now, there's still plenty of room for me to learn and grow as a leader and soldier. People always ask me if there's a chance I could get sent on another deployment. The answer is always yes as long as I am still serving in the Army National Guard. While I was in the middle of my junior year at Penn State, my six year enlistment was set to expire. I decided to re-enlist for three more years because I wasn't ready to move on from the Guard and I wanted to continue serving with the band of brothers in my unit and enjoy those education benefits for two more years. I graduated from Penn State with degrees in Political Science and Security & Risk Analysis in May of 2010. In October, unit leadership wanted to know where I stood with the expiration of my contract coming up again. I gave them my word then that I would give them another year. My contract would have expired on this past Saturday had I not decided to extend for a year. With it comes another year of service, commitments, and then another decision to make this time next year. Recently, I was offered another opportunity to work with kids. It sounded like the perfect starter job for a guy with some experience working around kids and looking for his first real full-time job. With weeks of training with my unit coming up in each of the next three months, they couldn't give me the job and I totally understand why. How can you develop a relationship, mentor, tutor, and guide kids when you're going to be away so much? I'm not bitter about it. It's just frustrating like this whole job hunt has been since I graduated. But you know what? I'm not going to piss, moan, and complain about it. I'll get up tomorrow and keep trying like I've been. I'm the one who raised his right hand and signed the dotted line to stay in. Hopefully that decision will turn out to be rewarding like it has been twice before and all this training and whatever else my future in the Guard holds will be worth it. I have no regrets. I hope it eventually leads to the career and life I want. Until then, if you or anyone you know is looking for a military man with limited availability for next few months but much more time to work hard for you in the summer months and beyond, send them my way! I'll be on this National Guard roller coaster ride for the near future but don't let it deter you from me. I can't believe it's been nine years already! Thank you so much for all the love and support through it all and in the future!
Cheers to more service, camaraderie, friendship, family, and fun!
BMart
By the time I returned home, I had become very interested in government and politics and decided I wanted to study political science. I was also being lobbied by friends from home who were studying at Penn State to go there too. I always loved Penn State but wanted to go away somewhere to school and didn't want to start at one of their branch campuses. While I was finishing up my time in Iraq, I applied to Penn State's Main Campus and with a great recommendation behind it from my high school guidance counselor and friend, I was accepted and started in the fall of 2005. By this time, my friends attending Penn State were all juniors and here I come starting my freshman year as a 20-year-old Army Veteran. Honoring my commitment to the Guard, I made the two hour ride home from school one weekend a month and two weeks every summer to serve with my unit. Although many times it took me away from my new friends, my fun life as a student, and my second home in Happy Valley, I was also able see my family and friends at home more than many other students away at school. During my time at Penn State, many soldiers in our unit deployed again multiple times with other units. They looked for volunteers again but this time I said no. I wanted to finish my college education before committing myself to any kind of tour of duty that would further delay my education and my life.
Prior to starting at Penn State, I went to the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC) early in the summer and earned my promotion to Sergeant. I'll always thank my recruiter and great friend J.P. for putting me in a duty position where I could move up in rank very quickly. I have a been a Staff Sergeant since late 2006 and cannot thank my fellow soldiers, peers, and unit leadership enough for their guidance, tutelage, and patience with me during my career. While having been a non-commissioned officer (NCO) for almost six years now, there's still plenty of room for me to learn and grow as a leader and soldier. People always ask me if there's a chance I could get sent on another deployment. The answer is always yes as long as I am still serving in the Army National Guard. While I was in the middle of my junior year at Penn State, my six year enlistment was set to expire. I decided to re-enlist for three more years because I wasn't ready to move on from the Guard and I wanted to continue serving with the band of brothers in my unit and enjoy those education benefits for two more years. I graduated from Penn State with degrees in Political Science and Security & Risk Analysis in May of 2010. In October, unit leadership wanted to know where I stood with the expiration of my contract coming up again. I gave them my word then that I would give them another year. My contract would have expired on this past Saturday had I not decided to extend for a year. With it comes another year of service, commitments, and then another decision to make this time next year. Recently, I was offered another opportunity to work with kids. It sounded like the perfect starter job for a guy with some experience working around kids and looking for his first real full-time job. With weeks of training with my unit coming up in each of the next three months, they couldn't give me the job and I totally understand why. How can you develop a relationship, mentor, tutor, and guide kids when you're going to be away so much? I'm not bitter about it. It's just frustrating like this whole job hunt has been since I graduated. But you know what? I'm not going to piss, moan, and complain about it. I'll get up tomorrow and keep trying like I've been. I'm the one who raised his right hand and signed the dotted line to stay in. Hopefully that decision will turn out to be rewarding like it has been twice before and all this training and whatever else my future in the Guard holds will be worth it. I have no regrets. I hope it eventually leads to the career and life I want. Until then, if you or anyone you know is looking for a military man with limited availability for next few months but much more time to work hard for you in the summer months and beyond, send them my way! I'll be on this National Guard roller coaster ride for the near future but don't let it deter you from me. I can't believe it's been nine years already! Thank you so much for all the love and support through it all and in the future!
Cheers to more service, camaraderie, friendship, family, and fun!
BMart
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