Spokane, WA 6/26 and 6/27 2013 INDIANS OK. I’ll admit it. I was giddy! Between the enthusiasm of Chris Duff, General Manager, the Ushers and the incredible park – I was just plain giddy. There is nothing about this park that is NOT about providing the best evening out a family can have. Yea. There’s baseball. But you could watch that on TV. This is a full immersion experience. First of all, the staff. Rumor has it that this group of folks work from the Disney model. In an employee meeting at the beginning of the season, everyone was told basically “safety first, and you’d better be having fun!”. That’s a company philosophy I can get behind. I saw dancing ushers, ushers doing magic for small wide eyed ones and mascots that competed for most outrageous acts. Their 3 Mascots (Otto the Dinosaur, Doris the “Spokane-osaurus” and Recycle Man) were the best I’ve seen yet. They were in the stands, on the field and in your face with crazy, crazy antics. At one point, there was a game delay since the field lights had blown out, and all heck broke out with those three! Otto was having fans toss baseballs to catch in his snout. Doris and Recycle Man were competing on the third base dugout for most rambunctious dance routine. And the fans didn’t seem to feel the delay at all. The two guys handing out programs do this silly little “vaudeville” style skit in the stands all about free programs. The park itself is a wonderful blend of old and new. It has been updated from its original state, but management did a perfect job of keeping that small field feel, even keeping the manual scoreboard on the announcer’s booth. Out in center field an old train has been refurbished with incredible wood paneling interior and bar. The children have a nice area for chalk drawings, running and blowup bounce house and slide. Upon entering the stadium fans received a scorecard with a great big red “K” on the back. Every visitor strikeout was followed by large red “K”s waving in the air throughout the stands. And when the game was tied in the 9th inning, the ground vibrated with the voices chanting “Let’s go, Indians! Let’s go!” In between inning games prevailed. In the two days we were there, no repeats. Games included an Eyeball Race (winner got a gift cert to the local eye doc), Recycle Race (2 fans race to put their computer parts into the recycle bin), Bowling, Pizza Box Toss and a Paint Can Stack. We danced Gangham style, the Cotton Eyed Joe and YMCA. And postgame, there were more kids doing the base run than I have seen yet. This is a level of fan participation unrivaled. One of the posted pictures is a cane made from a baseball bat – well, a Fungo bat (a light bat used by coaches for field practice). He made it himself along with another one from a beautiful old putter. This was just one of the people interviewed by John for the book here. Looking forward to reading those stories, I know John was excited about them!
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 17:20:57 +0000
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