Just a few days prior to the start of the minor league season and you can bet clubs are doing all the last-minute scrambling to get ready for their teams to arrive from Arizona or Florida as big league clubs break their minor league camps.\u00c2\u00a0 Opening Day is here, ready or not!<\/p>\n
The biggest assignment is that of Washington Nationals super prospect, Stephen Strasburg, who will make his professional debut with the Harrisburg Senators in the Eastern League.\u00c2\u00a0 There might not be a better promotional giveaway or theme night this season compared to when Strasburg takes the bump for the Senators.<\/p>\n
Strasburg is scheduled to start at Altoona on April 11 and then his next two starts, if he stays on normal rest, will be at home on the Senators’ first homestand of the season.<\/p>\n
Randy Whitaker, the general manager of the Senators and Terry Byrom, the club’s play-by-play announcer were gracious enough recently to answer some questions about the arrival of the next big pitching phenom.<\/p>\n
Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Is their more excitement than normal around your club, with the Nationals announcing that Stephen Strasburg will open up the season with Double-A? \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/p>\n
Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “Definitely.\u00c2\u00a0 We were already having a big off season as a new stadium is just finishing up and plans for hosting the 2010 Eastern League All-Star game are in full swing.”<\/p>\n
Terry Byrom:\u00c2\u00a0 “Steve, absolutely. Wow. It is really amazing that there is as much excitement as there is because of Strasburg, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re happy for it. Our ticket sales are up about three times more than normal for this time of year since the announcement he was coming.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already been contacted by MASN, ESPN, and Fox News Channel not to mention all of the local media and the somewhat local media that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normally cover us. I expect that as April 16th<\/sup> nears I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have even more requests. The good news we have a brand new ballpark and room for all the requests.”<\/span><\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 When did you find out that\u00c2\u00a0Strasburg would be assigned to your club?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “About 12 hours before the rest of the world did \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 assuming he does actually end up here.\u00c2\u00a0 Things can change.”<\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Does the major league affiliate go about giving any particular instructions with a prospect of this caliber?\u00c2\u00a0 Things they would like done or things they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want you doing? \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “His public interest calls for extra security and media controls.\u00c2\u00a0 The Nationals have been a welcomed contributor to the plan for dealing with that interest.”<\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Are you gearing up any last minute and special promotions early on in the season geared around Strasburg?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “He IS a special promotion.\u00c2\u00a0 We are making a few special merchandise purchases.”<\/p>\n Terry Byrom:\u00c2\u00a0 “No we aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to have anything special while he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have plenty of Strasburg related promotions in the coming months and years such as a bobblehead giveaway and more. His first start happens to correspond with our first Flatscreen and Fireworks Friday. Every Friday home game this season we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be giving away a 26\u00e2\u20ac\u009d flatscreen TV and then fireworks after the game. Altogether we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re giving away at least 99 TVs this year.”<\/span><\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 If he stays on normal rest, he should make two starts on your first home stand of the season,\u00c2\u00a0 do you expect a jump in ticket sales this week and leading up to the start of the season?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “Already experiencing that jump.”<\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Do you expect to see a spike in attendance when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scheduled to start at home?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be surprised if it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.”<\/p>\n Terry Byrom:\u00c2\u00a0 “As I already mentioned, our ticket sales are already going crazy and the team isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even here yet. We expect that once the team is here early next week, our ticket sales will jump even more. Our FanFest is Saturday, April 10th<\/sup> and we expect ticket sales to really jump then.\u00c2\u00a0 Typically 2 weeks out from our opening weekend our sales would be somewhere between 750 to 1000 per game and now we are over 2000 for the two starts he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s making (including a Wednesday morning) and tickets have only been on sale for a few days.<\/span><\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Anytime a team gets a club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prospect, one of the first questions becomes how long do you expect him to be here.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you asked that question or is it a matter of enjoying having him for as long as he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s there?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “Speculation is really useless.\u00c2\u00a0 We have no control over how long he stays, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to take full advantage and enjoy it while we can.”<\/p>\n Terry Byrom:\u00c2\u00a0 “I would guess he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be here until at least early May, then beyond that is really dependent on how he does. And yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m enjoying this for as long as the ride lasts.”<\/span><\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 Most club’s have situations where they have host families that take players in during their time in a particular city, does Harrisburg have a program like this and have you had any inquiries from host families?<\/p>\n Randy Whitaker:\u00c2\u00a0 “We have had a network of host families for years.\u00c2\u00a0 Some folks have housed players since the Senators returned to City Island in 1987.”<\/p>\n Question:\u00c2\u00a0 What, if anything, have you learned about Strasburg in your prep that hasn’t been covered already: <\/span><\/p>\n Terry Byrom:\u00c2\u00a0 “I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really had time to sit down and do any prep yet.\u00c2\u00a0 My time has been taken with all the media requests, interviews, etc. that have occurred since we found out he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be a Harrisburg Senator for a while.”<\/span> Sugar’s Random Thoughts:<\/p>\n Great to see that former big league Doug Glanville has signed up to serve as analyst with ESPN and Baseball Tonight.\u00c2\u00a0 Those in charge should do all they can do to make sure that the likes of Glanville be involved with the game for years to come.<\/p>\n I wasn’t all that surprised to see Darryl Strawberry go out the way he did on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice.\u00c2\u00a0 I chuckled when Holly Robinson Peete said she was upset because he was bailing on his charity.\u00c2\u00a0 The way I see it, Darryl sees himself as his own charity for years.\u00c2\u00a0 In case you missed it, the Mets had him throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field on Monday<\/p>\n When you are driving around your town or city this spring and summer, take notice of all the vacant baseball fields where young kids should be playing.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, they are on skateboards, basketball courts, or elsewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to make major league baseball more appealing to the next generation, get them out on the ballfields, boys and girls.<\/p>\n Let’s hope that Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts stays healthy and his back issues don’t plague him long term.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball is better when the Orioles are good and Robers is one of the leaders of that club.<\/p>\n I am looking forward to watching Roy Oswalt pitch on television at least twice this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just a few days prior to the start of the minor league season and you can bet clubs are doing all the last-minute scrambling to get ready for their teams to arrive from Arizona or Florida as big league clubs break their minor league camps.\u00c2\u00a0 Opening Day is here, ready or not! The biggest assignment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":719,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,4235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minors","category-top-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/p>\n