Columnist Dean Juipe: Triple-A games an ad vehicle

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1999 | 10:03 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Inquiring minds want to know: What the heck is the Triple-A World Series doing in Las Vegas?

Naturally, attendance at the games qualifies as paltry.

As the TV cameras can't disguise, the stands at Cashman Field are as empty as they were during the regular season when the stadium was used by its primary tenants, the Las Vegas Stars. What those in attendance, or watching as ESPN2 televises this week, are seeing is two teams jostling for a championship that even the winner will be hard-pressed to celebrate.

If the Series wasn't in Las Vegas with all its seductive sidelights, the players involved might see it as pure drudgery. Minor leaguers who were not recalled by their major-league parental unit are not ordinarily inclined to want to extend a season and play as far into September as possible.

They would just as soon be at home, fishing or golfing.

As it is, each of the teams involved has had numerous player transactions in recent weeks and many of the players participating in the Series are new to their clubs -- not that anyone beyond the teams themselves would know.

For the most part, Las Vegans have reached the point where they all but detest anything resembling minor-league sports -- aside from their beloved Stars, of course -- and the two teams in this year's Triple-A World Series typify one of minor-league sports' many foibles, its transient nature.

Charlotte, a Chicago White Sox affiliate that is representing the International League, is a team that was based in Calgary in 1998 and based in Nashville in 1997. The Knights, as they're known, have been on the road so long they couldn't have built up much fan allegiance back in Charlotte in spite of their excellent season.

Their opponent, Vancouver, an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics and the Pacific Coast League champion, has already played its last game in Vancouver -- forever. The Canadians will change their name and the franchise will move to Sacramento for the 2000 season.

While it's obvious the Series isn't a big attraction in Las Vegas, on second thought it might not have been in Charlotte and Vancouver either, given the Knights' and the Canadians' unstable situations in their hometowns.

The Series is here because the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority paid $750,000 to land it and its accompanying TV exposure. That seems like a stiff fee, yet the LVCVA is looking to get its money's worth out of it by plastering Las Vegas logos within eyesight of every available on-deck circle and grandstand.

The TV viewer is constantly aware of Las Vegas and, in theory, his subconscious is telling him to take a trip here. The Series is nothing more than an advertising vehicle, an expensive commercial that is assured of three days' play to its national cable audience and maybe five if the Series goes the distance.

But in Las Vegas there is a predictable indifference to the Series and that's the way it will always be, barring the Stars actually having a championship-level season one of these years.

Who knows? By then the Series could be in Biloxi or on some Indian reservation or at any other gambling destination willing to ante up for an event of only marginal significance that is certain to almost completely escape the local residents' attention.

The Triple-A World Series? It's more of a slot-club promo than sporting event.