51s ‘Play ball!’ with new affiliation, in-state rival

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, April 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

In professional baseball, opening day is a time for fresh starts and new opportunities.

No matter what happened last year or during the offseason, every team has a shot to win.

And 2009 is a fresh start for the Las Vegas 51s, the city’s minor-league baseball franchise, with a new Major League Baseball affiliation, a new in-state rivalry and a positive outlook despite the economy.

The 51s have traded Dodger Blue for Blue Jay Blue this year — the third Major League affiliation for the team since it took the field in 1983 — and this year’s schedule will include 16 dates with the brand-new Reno Aces, the top affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Don Logan, the 51s general manager, looks at the 2009 season as one filled with opportunity, even though the economy is as weak as the Washington Nationals.

Unlike most minor-league teams, the 51s have nightly competition for the entertainment dollar and locals casinos keep the team from drawing as well as some of its Pacific Coast League counterparts.

“We’re still going to be an affordable family outing,” Logan said a couple of days before the two Big League Weekend dates featuring the Seattle Mariners and the Colorado Rockies at Cashman Field, which has 9,334 seats.

“But our biggest competition is locals casinos. There are lots of Station (Casinos) properties, the majority of Boyd (Gaming) properties are geared for locals, there’s the South Point and now the M and they’re all providing a variety of casino entertainment,” Logan said. “That’s the biggest challenge we have, the biggest drawback to why we can’t entice more people to our games.”

Despite the competition, Logan remains optimistic that the gate will be healthy because he figures baseball fans may not do as much traveling to see the Angels and Dodgers in Los Angeles or the San Diego Padres or to Phoenix to see the Diamondbacks.

Besides, he said, minor-league baseball can be a cheap family outing. Logan said plaza and field seat ticket prices have gone up by $1 this season, the first increase in three years, but a family of four can still get into a game with concessions for under $50. Ticket prices range from $9 to $14, with several promotional nights.

Logan is trying to arrange for two postgame concerts, but he’s running into the same challenges he has with casinos. Many of the musical acts that play baseball gigs are the same ones that perform in the casinos.

But Logan is proud of the team’s fireworks nights, saying they rival the displays offered in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve. There are 12 fireworks nights this season with the first one April 18 when the team plays host to Colorado Springs.

Beer prices also will go up, but servings will be increased from 24 ounces to 32 ounces.

Thursday nights will be the popular dollar-beer nights. On Monday nights, the team will offer peanuts, popcorn, Cracker Jack, pretzels and hot dogs for $1 and on Tuesdays, the 51s will celebrate their new affiliation with the Toronto Blue Jays. On those nights, the Canadian national anthem will be played, the stadium’s Aramark concessionaire will sell Canadian beers — Labatt’s, Molson and Moosehead Lager — and fans can get $5 general admission tickets if they wear 51s or Canadian gear.

“Anybody who comes with a hockey jersey, or a Blue Jays jersey or even a Royal Canadian Mounted Police hat, we’re going to give them a discount,” Logan said.

The economy has hit season-ticket sales with many construction-related companies failing to renew for 2009. The 51s have focused on selling season tickets to essential-service professional businesses such as doctors, dentists, CPAs and lawyers. Although season-ticket sales are behind last year’s, Logan is hopeful that walk-up ticket sales, which represent about 40 percent of the gate, will increase.

The 51s’ Canadian connection is a new twist. Although most fans lamented losing the Dodgers as the team’s Major League affiliate, Logan is doing his best to make lemonade from lemons.

“We really tried to emphasize the Dodger affiliation here and because of the proximity of Los Angeles and the length of success the team has had, they’re really the best affiliate for us,” Logan said. “We had 17 places where we displayed the Dodger logo at Cashman and we had posters of all the Dodger greats and even sold Dodger Dogs for awhile. But it was kind of a one-way street. They didn’t value the relationship, obviously, as much as we did or they’d still be here.”

The Dodgers didn’t renew their relationship with the 51s because of a lack of training facilities at Cashman. Instead, the team connected with Albuquerque where it was affiliated before it signed on with Las Vegas in 2001.

But the Blue Jays are happy with their Las Vegas affiliation because if they need to make a quick player call-up, they’ll be able to fly them virtually anywhere in the country on short notice because of the numerous flights from McCarran International Airport, including several nonstop and one-stop flights to Toronto. The Blue Jays formerly were affiliated with a team in Syracuse, N.Y., which had limited transportation options.

“Until we get a new state-of-the-art facility, we’re going to be forced into relationships with clubs that maybe don’t make a lot of sense to the public,” Logan said. “To that end, though, we’re going to go the extra mile to make this Blue Jay arrangement work as best as we can until the day we do get a new facility.”

Getting a new facility is a recurring issue for the 51s, which have been fighting that battle for nearly a decade. Logan says of his Pacific Coast League contemporaries, only Tacoma, Wash., has a worse stadium.

The city and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority are seeking proposals to upgrade Cashman Center, which includes a theater, a small convention facility and meeting rooms. Any modifications to Cashman would have to include a solution for the 51s, whether that is an upgrade to existing baseball facilities or a new location.

Logan says other minor-league facilities have training rooms that are twice as large as those at Cashman, state-of-the-art weight rooms that are three to four times larger than those at Cashman and indoor batting cages and pitching tunnels. Other stadiums also have luxury boxes for corporate clients. Minor-league teams can get $30,000 a season for a luxury suite.

Logan attributes the inattention to existing facilities to local leaders getting caught up in the “Major League dreams.” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has led the push to lure a Major League team to the city, but aside from some flirtations from the old Montreal Expos and the Florida Marlins who used a threat to move to Las Vegas as a bargaining chip, efforts to get a team here have been quiet.

But again, Logan is optimistic that what’s happening up north could eventually lead to change here.

The Tucson Sidewinders, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ AAA affiliate, were sold in 2007 to SK Baseball, led by Stuart Katzoff, who agreed to move the team to Reno if a stadium was built. On April 17, the new $40 million Aces Ballpark in downtown Reno will open when the Reno Aces play Salt Lake.

“Some of our Southern Nevada legislators are going to wander over to Reno to watch a game for a night out from the rigors of the legislative battles and when they go in and see that place, they’re going to say, ‘How the hell can Reno have this and we don’t?’ How can Salt Lake? How can everybody?” Logan said. “(The new stadium) is going to be outstanding, it’s going to be awesome.”

The 51s and Aces will meet for the first time June 15 in Reno and July 1 at Cashman. Logan is encouraging a friendly wager between Goodman and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell with a bragging rights trophy going to the team that wins more games in the head-to-head series.

Logan expects the Reno franchise to do well since the locals casino market there isn’t as robust as it is in Las Vegas and fans seem to have embraced the new arrival. He’s hopeful the franchise will do well and possibly jump-start improvements for his operation in Las Vegas.

It’s the kind of optimism you expect from a baseball fan as the season opens.