Cracker-Cats and Vipers home openers (R)

[DoyleG]

Joliet 9 Calgary 8 (11 Innings)

Attendance: 4,103

Sioux Falls 9 Edmonton 7

Attendance: 5,894 (7,849 tickets sold)

[DoyleG]

Went to tonight's game against Sioux Falls to see what kind of product it was. Paid $13.25 ($11.50 ticket plus $1.75 service charge) for a seat behind the home plate area. Seeing the Cats blow a 3-0 lead and lose 6-5 with so many chances to put away the game. Estimate about 3,000 in attendance.

The good:

- Telus Field now has what seems to be a FieldTurf infield to replace the old Astroturf that was in place for nearly a decade. One would hope they would make the field all one surface in the future.

- Having a radio broadcasting contract.

- Most of the ad boards that used to cover the outfield wall are now gone. That's one eyesore that isn't needed.

- Fans are seemingly willing to support the product. That clears one of the biggest hurdles.

- Built up a strong sponsor base.

The bad:

- They still have the promos from the Trappers such as the Let's Make A Deal. A woman risked her tickets for the next game for a secret prize that turned out to be 100 paper clips.

- Ron Rimmer is just a pain. So is the woman they have going around getting to crowd involved in the game.

- Concession costs were as expensive as they've always been.

- They played music at every gap in the game. They mut've hired the music guy from the Mustangs home games.

The ugly:

- Stubby Clapp gets hit by a pitch on back-to-back at bats. The 2nd one caused both benches to clear.

The funny:

- The Sioux Falls manager gets tossed after arguing a call in the bottom of the ninth (Caused by the Cats manager challenging a call in which the umpires agreed with the Cats) which caused him the toss a chair and a full garbage can onto the field.

- A foul ball play apparently triggered the sprinkler system for the outfield to be activated and start spraying water. One of the umpires got hit.

[argh1]

Thank-you, please keep us updated on the happenings of our Alberta pro baseball teams. I'm sure I won't see much in the paper down my way.

Something tells me in time Northern League will be more succesfull in Alberta than Pacific League. No parent club to answer to, no playing players because the parent club says so, no pitch counts, community identity.

EDIT: If you don't mind I'll post some of our other Independant league results.

Sioux City 5-2 Winnipeg 7,592 att.

Can-Am League

New Haven 3-9 Quebec City 2,690 att.

[DoyleG]

Seems to be a bit of a dispute about attenance figures. The Cats seem to count based on the number of tickets sold while the Edmonton Sun (Scott Zerr doing the reporting) report the actual attendance.

The casta have reported attendances of 7849, 4281, and 2261 for their first home series.

I wnon't be able to attend that many games before the end of June as it appears I will be heading out east for the summer.