Why PNC Field blows right now and I miss the Red Barons!

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