It's time for the IronPigs to try an afternoon Opening Day

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Kurt Landes is the idea man.

Anyone who can come up with a new urinal gaming system for Coca-Cola Park is an innovator.

His ideas are one of the biggest reasons why the IronPigs have been a goldmine for five years and the most successful franchise in minor-league baseball.

As I walked around a three-quarters empty Coca-Cola Park in the fifh inning on Thursday night and visited with ushers who had no one to usher, concession stands with no lines and a concourse level that was at least traffic-free, if not empty, I thought that I'd give Landes an idea.

Why not try an afternoon Opening Day next year?

Doesn't have to be a 1 p.m. start. How about a late-afternoon start, like 3 or 3:30? Or even a 4 p.m. start like the Phillies are having on Friday afternoon?

I know some kids might not be able to get out of school, and some people might not be able to get out of work, but my guess is that with months and months of advance notice, enough people could adjust their schedules to make it happen, and Opening Day could become like a local holiday the way it has been for decades in Cincinnati.

My thought was that if Thursday's opener began at 2 p.m. instead of five hours later, it would have attracted a capacity crowd and many more people would have stayed for the entire game rather than the few hundred who were still freezing when Syracuse's 11-2 win over Lehigh Valley was complete late Thursday night.

Later in the night, I talked with Landes.

Turns out that he has thought a daytime opener, and evidently, has given it a lot of thought. And the good news is that he's at least thinking about it.

"I have mixed feelings," Landes told me.  "It seems like we always have the opener on a Thursday and I know that being a father myself that kids have soccer or some after-school activity at this time of year and a day game would conflict with that.. On the other hand, it's also a school night and they have to get home early.

"I don't know if we went for a daytime game on a weekday if the business crowd would leave early enough for a  2 o'clock game. It's warmer for a daytime game, but for me, there's something special about being under the lights. I don't know. You want a starting time that's optimal for the most amount of people to attend. It's more critical for me to have as many people here as possible. I'm also very concerned about traffic."

Well, from my experience, the traffic is much better on Route 22 and I-78 and Union Boulevard and Hanover Ave., etc. between noon and 2 than it is between 4 and 6 when people are coming out to night games. At worst, the traffic would be about the same. And since not everybody would be leaving the game at the same time, I don't think the postgame traffic would be that big of a deal.  

As for the soccer games and other extracurricular activities, a 2 p.m. start would still allow kids to still get there for that stuff after seeing six or seven innings of the 'Pigs game.

Landes said that if the season began on a Friday, he'd think even think more about an earlier start in an effort to get an earlier start to the weekend.

"I'd be curious to get feedback from it," Landes said. "I've absolutely thought about it."

Well, personally, I hope Landes thinks about it some more because it was cold on Thursday night and as long as you're playing night games in the first week of April it's almost always going to be cold.

Scranton unveiled its new-look stadium on Thursday night and I wouldn't doubt that there were snow flurries in Lackawanna County (I've been there on opening night before and it snowed) and my guess is they had even fewer people in the stands in the fourth inning than Coca-Cola Park.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be some glitches to overcome with a day game, but why not give it a try? Why not try it once to see how the community and the business world and the schools respond? I mean people do show up at  10 or 10:30 in the morning in the thousands for Thanksgiving football games. Why not start a new tradition?

To me, still, the most event memorable in stadium history was the first game -- the exhibition between the IronPigs and Phillies on March 30, 2008. 10,188 people -- still the Coca-Cola Park record -- showed up. 

I know that was a special day, one that will never, ever, be duplicated.

But one thing I will always remember is that it was a day game and the place never sparkled so brightly no how much brighter the scoreboard looks after the sun sets.

Special baseball games throughout the game's history have been played in daylight. Opening day for the IronPigs should always be special as well.

I'd like to see the IronPigs give daytime a chance next year.