Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Photo
Thompson
BOARDMAN
Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, more affectionately known as the Mid-Summer Classic, is held the second week of July. Even though the Class A New York-Penn League’s version rolls around in the middle of August, plans for its All-Star Game began right as last season ended.
And the Mahoning Valley Scrappers wanted to ensure that it will truly be a classic.
Matt Thompson, Director of Sales for the Scrappers, along with general manager Jordan Taylor and some other front office staff members have attended several of the previous All-Star Games held at other stadiums around the NYPL.
“We realized that they’re not doing anything that we can’t do,” Thompson said speaking to the Curbstone Coaches on Monday. “The league was ecstatic about Lowell last year. The product that they put out for their All-Star game was not something that we couldn’t take on.”
Unlike the MLB and some higher level minor leagues, the All-Star game is not on a guaranteed rotation and teams must prove themselves worthy to take on the high-scale event. In just its first attempt at luring the game to the area, Mahoning Valley hit a home run with their inaugural bid.
The NYPL All-Star Game will be Aug. 14 at Eastwood Field.
“You can always go to a Scrappers game where you might see a few players that could make the bigs,” Thompson said. “Now, we’re going to have all these guys concentrated into one game, so there’s a good chance that you’re going to see a lot of names on that roster for both teams that people are going to recognize around the country in a few years.”
At last year’s game in Lowell, Mass., and the year before in Staten Island, NY, host-team officials sent those visiting into Boston and Manhattan, respectively, without any rhyme or reason. The Scrappers are encouraging visitors to stay in the Niles-area and they have a litany of events including a “Valley Gala,” luncheon, home run derby and post-party, on top of the game, itself. Fans have a chance to attend all the events and rub shoulders with Scrappers management and ownerships, Indians officials and representatives from both the minor and major leagues.
So far, 2,000 tickets have been sold to the All-Star Game.
Not only making an impression with the league, the Scrappers have impressed their parent club. Earlier this offseason, the Indians announced that their partnership with Mahoning Valley will be extended through the 2014 season.
“The Indians have been very happy with how we’ve done things with our facility, the relationship that we have and the great fan support,” Thompson said.