Wednesday, April 8, 1998 | 10:39 a.m.
Opening day traditionally is the one day of the season a baseball team can count on a sell-out crowd. That is, unless that team happens to call Las Vegas home.
The triple-A Stars opened the 1998 Pacific Coast League season Tuesday night at Cashman Field in much the same manner they have for each of the past eight seasons: with a loss in front of a less-than-capacity crowd.
An intimate gathering of about 4,000 fans braved temperatures that dipped into the low 50s to watch the Stars drop their season opener to the Edmonton Trappers, 9-4.
Other than the traditional introduction of each player on both teams as they lined up along the first- and third-base lines, this could have been any one of the 72 home games the Stars will play at 9,334-seat Cashman Field this season. The stadium was even devoid of the decorative bunting that is customary on opening day.
But as Stars general manager Don Logan noted as his team took the field for the 16th home opener in the franchise's history, Las Vegas is not the typical triple-A baseball town.
"Our true opening is the Big League Weekend," Logan said, referring to Major League Baseball exhibition games played at Cashman last month. "This year, back in March, we had the Angels and Giants and that played into it (Tuesday's small crowd).
"And then, of course, a week ago (March 29) we had the Indians and Brewers and it was full -- we had over 12,000 people in this place. That, I think, is what really hurts the Stars opener."
The Stars have sold out only one home opener in 16 years and that came in their inaugural season in 1983 when an overflow crowd of 13,217 jammed into the brand-new ballpark.
Since 1986, the Stars have brought major-league spring training games to Cashman as a way to get Southern Nevadans thinking about baseball, but the event has usually had an adverse effect on the club's season-opening home stand.
"The first home stand is always very difficult to sell," Logan said. "And having this year's opener on a Tuesday night hurts us. The rationale this year was to start (the season) a little bit later and kind of separate our opener from the big-league clubs' openers."
Logan added that the Stars' poor performance on the field the past several years may have contributed to Tuesday's disappointing attendance -- and might be the reason the team's annual attendance has not kept pace with the city's rapid growth in population.
"If there's anything that I've seen happen to us in the last few years is that the walk-up (ticket sales) has dropped off and I think the reason for that is that we haven't played well," Logan said. "On paper, we've had good clubs, but through whatever series of events that occur we end up not being as good as we start out."
The Stars drew a franchise-record 386,310 fans to Cashman in 1993 but have averaged about 320,000 fans the past three seasons.
"Our emphasis is on the entertainment and the family aspects and we really don't try to emphasize the way the team plays because you never know how it's going to go," Logan said. "Four of the last five years we've struggled to the point where people want to come out and see us win but we're not (winning)."
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