The season is barely over, but officials with the Lancaster Barnstormers — the Atlantic League champion Barnstormers —are already planning special events for the winter and for the 2007 season.
By David O'connor
Published Oct 12, 2006 14:11
There was an excited, capacity-plus crowd in a beautiful baseball park, which some thought would never be built.
It was a beautiful day, this last day of the 2006 regular season, with the Lancaster team comfortably in the lead in the last inning.
By now, all of Lancaster knows what happened in the days to come: two playoff series, won without losing a game, and the Atlantic League championship, won before a raucous, white-towel-waving crowd at Clipper Magazine Stadium.
How do you top that, the ending to what most are calling a dream season?
The Barnstormers will soon be able to tell you. The team has started work on the offseason at the stadium, with more winter events planned, and for the 2007 season.
Next year, the team’s third, will feature an all-star game and a variety of other offerings, with a minor ticket price increase expected.
After a championship like the one Barnstormers’ fans are now enjoying, “you enjoy it, but you still have work to do,” team general manager Pinto said Tuesday. It was Lancaster’s first professional championship since 1955, when the former Red Roses won the old Piedmont League title.
“It’s like any other sports organization when you win the championship ... it means your team is the best in your league at what they do, and that’s something no one will be able to take away from this community,” Pinto said.
“And that’s really great. But we have started thinking about what we can do in 2007,” he said.
As he spoke in his office, it seemed like there was still a buzz around him at the stadium.
With the dream season complete, and with the championship won in only the Barnstormers’ second season, new things are already being planned for 2007 — and even sooner than that, in this just-started offseason, Pinto said.
Here’s a sampling of what you might see in 2007:
An even bigger opening night, when the team and players will get their championship rings and the championship banner will be hoisted above the park.
A rivalry with the new York Revolution team, which begins play in June at its own new ballpark.
The Atlantic League All-Star Game, which Lancaster is hosting on Wednesday, July 11.
There also are more immediate things for the team and the stadium:
On Wednesday in Harrisburg, state officials will recognize the Barnstormers with a resolution honoring the team for its championship. Various team officials will represent the Barnstormers at the capital.
Fans who buy 2007 season tickets now can avoid what Pinto expects to be a “nominal” ticket-price increase for next year, something on the order of 50 cents a ticket.
The team has not raised its prices over the first two seasons, and nothing has been finalized for next year, Pinto emphasized.
Individual game tickets for 2007 will go on sale in April.
After the initial price of concessions was criticized by fans at the start of the initial season of 2005, the team reduced the prices after just eight games.
The Snow Magic Fun Park, the two winter slides that drew a total of 20,000 people to the park from January though March, won’t be back in 2007, Pinto confirmed Tuesday.
But there are plans for another, alternative wintertime event at the baseball park, along with some in-season additions at the ballpark, both of which Pinto declined to discuss.
But he predicts “definitely something big in the winter” will be happening, so the baseball park won’t be sitting empty until April.
As for the question many people are asking — will there be a victory celebration? — a spokeswoman in Mayor Rick Gray’s office said Tuesday that something is being worked on, along the line of a parade or victory rally, but nothing is definite yet.
Pinto said the “absolute latest” the team will be honored will be on opening night 2007. Next year’s schedule hasn’t been finalized yet by the league.
The current Thursday night comedy series, which is continuing through October in the stadium’s upstairs Wheatland Suite, could be extended if it does well, Pinto said.
The rest of this month’s schedule is: tonight, headliner Scott Heim along with Jered Stern; Oct. 19, headliner Caroline Picard along with Tom Tran; and Oct. 26, headliner Freddie Stone and Vince Martin.
The team recently announced the retirement of J. Keith Lupton, the team official who had hired Manager Tom Herr and, to many, was the face of the organization as team ownership officials began laying the groundwork for a team in Lancaster.
It hasn’t been determined what will be done with the position that was held by Lupton, senior vice president of baseball operations for Keystone Baseball, the parent company of the Barnstormers.
Lupton, who announced his retirement last month after a 25-year career as an executive in minor-league baseball, was honored Sept. 27 before the first home playoff game.
Lupton “was the architect of Lancaster’s baseball team right from the beginning,” said Peter Kirk, Keystone’s chairman.
Lupton, while retiring from day-to-day operations, is staying on with Keystone as a senior advisor, and “will begin nurturing the northern Virginia market for a possible minor-league baseball team” there, a team news release states.
Pinto, as he looks at how to improve the “fan experience” for 2007, concedes it’s usually tough for him to go to “a theater, a mall or another sporting event” without being in work mode, and thinking of how he could apply what was happening there to the baseball team.
To improve in 2007, the long hours and hard work by the team’s 20 or so full-time employees “can’t stop,” Pinto said.
“It’s incredible to see the staff’s hard work pay off, with the fans being there (for the games) and with the team doing so well.”
The two playoff games at the North Prince Street ballpark, on Sept. 27 and then the Oct. 1 clincher, had an atmosphere that Pinto, who’s been in professional baseball for 10 years, has never seen.
“I mean, we only played two games (during the playoffs), but they (fans) stood for every pitch, they screamed, they waved their rally towels, they wore red, they didn’t want to leave after we won the championship.
“Lancaster had a Major League Baseball feel, and that’s a credit to the fans.”
Now, less than two weeks into the offseason, “We want to continue to work hard, to make sure we make sure it’s the community’s team,” Pinto said.
