Ron Kantowski on how 51s are still trying to tell everyone what a great deal they are after 25 years

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

It suddenly dawned when I was oiling my baseball glove in anticipation of spring training that this will be the 25th season of Pacific Coast League baseball in Las Vegas.

It's hard to believe we've been buying peanuts and Cracker Jack and watching guys try to hit the cutoff man for a quarter-century, an occasion that surely deserves comment or perspective.

But I've been sitting here twiddling my thumbs, like waiting on a Mike Hargrove at-bat to finish, trying to think of the perfect analogy or at least one that would apply in regard to what the Stars/51s have meant to local sports.

If I wait any longer, the equipment managers are going to start handing out the high jersey numbers down in Vero Beach. So let's just say the 51s are like a bass guitarist in a rock band. They are crucial to the foundation of the overall product, even if you don't notice them thumping in the background.

It must aggravate club President Don Logan that the 51s must compete with hockey's Wranglers and arena football's Gladiators and the abysmal UNLV football program for column inches and sound bites on the 11 o'clock news when the Las Vegas minor league ballclub continues to supply its parent club with one hot prospect after another.

Heading into spring training, there are 52 players on major league rosters who either wore a star or - egad! - an alien on their caps. That's roughly 52 more than the Wranglers and Gladiators have sent to the NHL and NFL. And reason enough, if you're peering through a knothole in the outfield fence, to plunk down $7 to go inside.

Unless, of course, you're waiting for an NBA team to relocate here. Then you better save that $7 and another $44.02 because that's what it's going to cost for a ticket in the nosebleed section at Oscar Goodman Arena, what with the price of an average NBA ticket having risen to $51.02.

Here's another way to look at it. For what it costs to watch an NBA game, you can get an autograph from one of the Dodgers stars of tomorrow before he starts charging for it and, if you go on Thursday/Beer Night, still have enough left over to buy most of the Super Bowl-champion Indianapolis Colts an ice-cold Budweiser.

Need more convincing? What do Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire have in common? Besides a steroid needle, wise guy.

The answer is all played at Cashman Field as Stars/51s opponents before they became superstars and/or persons of interest in a grand jury investigation.

In 1973 I saw my first PCL game at the old Albuquerque Sports Stadium. Somewhere in a box in my closest there is an old baseball with the signatures of former Albuquerque Dukes Jerry Royster and Geoff Zahn and ex-Tucson Toros Manny Trillo and Phil Garner.

Trust me on this: If I still tell somebody else's grandkids that I saw Manny Trillo and Phil Garner play in Triple-A on their way to The Show, you will one day tell your own grandkids that you saw Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds go deep when they still were skinny.

At least that's what Logan is hoping. He'd love to entice you with a modern ballpark and amenities, like the ones in Fresno and Sacramento and Albuquerque. Because, quite frankly, on nights when there are fireworks and cheap beer you'll need the digestive system of a camel or one of those NASA diapers to offset the lines at the restrooms.

With one major league team after another using Las Vegas as leverage to get a better stadium before their leases expire in the year 2525, thereby creating false hope that we will be getting our own big league team sooner rather than later, Logan knows the 51s must make do with a ballpark that would make Ebbetts Field look state of the art.

But as they embark on their 25th season, the 51s haven't given up on attracting attention.

"We're like Horshack in 'Welcome Back Kotter,' " Logan said. "We're sitting in the back of the room, still waving our hand like crazy."