Some see 51s, some see Stars

By Brian Hilderbrand (contact)

Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Engage any Las Vegas old-timer that is to say, anyone who has been in town 15 or 20 years in a discussion of the local minor league baseball team and it’s almost guaranteed he will call it the “Stars” at least once.

The team has been known as the 51s since the 2001 season, but to many longtime fans it’ll always be the Stars the nickname it carried from 1983 until the end of the 2000 season.

Don Logan, the longtime president and general manager of the 51s, acknowledges that adopting the new nickname and alien mascot might not have been the best idea.

“As we’ve made our way around town and I’ve tried to introduce (new owner Derek Stevens) to more people, most people we talk to suggest that now is a great chance to get rid of that (51s) name,” Logan says.

“In the circles of community leaders and business leaders the people that we deal with on a regular basis they never really warmed up to it.”

The Stevens Baseball Group could learn as soon as this week whether its purchase of the 51s from Mandalay Baseball Properties has received approval from the minor league and major league commissioners. Once the sale is final, Logan says, he and Stevens would examine all facets of the organization including the team’s nickname.

“Everything we do, we’ll look at,” he says, “and certainly the name is probably going to be one of the first things we look at.

“I think we need to take a look at the whole operation. A lot of what we tried to do from 1999 to 2003 didn’t work.”

Logan will not say whether he prefers to go back to the Stars nickname or choose a new one. The fans, however, will be consulted and the team might even hold a contest to select a nickname, he says.

The franchise moved to Las Vegas in 1983 from Spokane, Wash. (where it was known as the Indians), and went through a variety of uniform changes and color schemes that early on included orange and brown and often mimicked the uniform of the parent San Diego Padres.

The franchise won a pair of Pacific Coast League championships, in 1986 and 1988, while affiliated with the Padres.

The team dropped the Stars nickname in favor of the 51s an homage to the top-secret Air Force installation about 80 miles from Las Vegas when it became the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2001.

Although the population of Clark County has nearly quadrupled since the team moved here in 1983, the team’s attendance figures have been stagnant averaging between 300,000 and 340,000 a season for much of the past two and a half decades. Last year, the franchise enjoyed its third-best season ever at the gate, attracting 371,676 fans to Cashman Field. It marked the team’s best attendance season since 1993, when it drew 386,310.

Logan is confident things will continue to improve under the new ownership, but he stops short of predicting what changes Stevens might implement.

“Mandalay is a big company with multiple teams in multiple cities,” Logan says. “This (new ownership group) will be a more family-oriented, community-minded situation.

“It’s going to be a good situation all the way around.”

Brian Hilderbrand can be reached at 259-4089 or at bh@lasvegassun.com.