Apter Hours: A Minor League Atmosphere - Part II: Wilmington Blue Rocks

The construction frenzy that is 476 South leading to 76 greeted me on January 15th, as I was on my way to work for my first day with the Wilmington Blue Rocks. I dealt with construction and an accident en route to Daniel S. Frawley stadium and arrived two minutes late. It ended up not being a big deal as the next step in my career sat right in front of me. I would be in the marketing department, supervised by the director of marketing, Mark Vanderhaar. My first day at the job was like any first day. I met most of the staff and we went to the Charcoal Pit, a Blue Rocks tradition, for lunch on the first day. Little did I know, I would get to play a very large part in the Blue Rocks new logo unveiling.

As the marketing assistant, my job at the beginning included learning Photoshop. It

is a program I use every day and I am sure many other people do the s ame thing. I had only been instructed to use Microsoft Publisher in college so A dobe was new to me. I had to get settles quickly though, as I was in charge of designing all of the new, in-stadium banners with the fresh logos. The logo unveiling took place on January 28th as fans and season ticket holders packed the auditorium of Wilmington's Baby Grand Theater. There was a great video that went through the history of the Blue Rocks as they changed affiliates from the Royals to Red Sox and back to the Royals. I would find out that MLB greats like Johnny Damon, Zack Greinke and others such as Chad Durbin, Mike Sweeney, Clay Buchholz and David DeJesus. Sure, it wasn't a Phillies

affiliate, but it had a lot of great history. The logo unveiling was a real eye-opener, as many passionate season ticket holders and advertisers watched GM Chris Kemple unveil the new look for the Rocks. Everyone's eyes glowed as the the new images were shown over the screen, as a new era of baseball was entering the Wilmington area. This whole experience really got me a good feel for how important this organization really was to this town.

The next few weeks of work were spent digging through picture archives from years past to find out what players should be put on the banner in the stadium. It was a grueling process with a lot of editing and changes, but the mesh banner was finalized and all we had to do was wait for it to come in. The player banners are the best looking ones in the stadium, as they reflect on past players that came through Wilmington and are enjoying success at the major league level. The other banner designs would cover booster club tables, the bullpen area, tarp area and the grounds crew area. The cool thing about Frawley Stadium is that they have an underground area where there is an indoor batting cage and tunnels that lead out on to the field. The first base tunnel is where the secondary mascot, Mr. Celery, is stationed. I will get more into the details of that later.

The rest of the time between February and April was spent designing ads to promote opening night and the logo changeover and just getting as much publicity as possible. As April rolled around, the smell of baseball was in the air, as the grass on the field started to look fresh and green and the dirt on the base paths were up to par. We opened our season on April 16th with fireworks and it was quite a hectic situation. My responsibility during the game was to assign for-credit college interns to different duties throughout the stadium. The biggest job was down in the tunnels, where all of the in-game contests are prepared. The first day had its rough points, like any first day would but it went relatively smoothly and have me a good chance to find out what I needed to do differently. It turned out that we started off with a couple of top prospects for Kansas City, including the likes of first basemen, Eric Hosmer, who dazzled at the All-Star Futures Game.

The games are definitely the best part of this job. The hours are crazy and sometimes you work them seven days straight, but the family fun atmosphere of minor league baseball just makes it more enjoyable. I had a very important job during games, which was to oversee a group of 15-20 college interns. The management experience really opened my eyes throughout the season. There was a total of 40 for-credit interns that I scheduled and managed altogether. I was in charge of assigning each one a position during games, whether it was helping set up on-field contests, working vending jobs or signing up contestants for the in-games. For the most part, I made sure everyone knew what they were doing and that all of the on-field contests went out there fast and were executed to the highest quality possible. The Blue Rocks have plenty of in-games, including one called Bash the Bugs, where a young fan gets to swat one of the college interns (in a cockroach costume) to the ground with a fly swatter. Wawa sponsors a lot of games and we also have the popular Mascot Mania, where the interns, including myself at times, get to dress up as mascots and race around the field to create carnage. Believe it or not, sometimes it is staged, but for the most part, we just agree for carnage to ensue.
While I could talk about how much I love the in-game stuff that Wilmington does, I think you get the gist of it.

The Blue Rocks offer such a great promotional schedule. I was privileged enough to be a part of some of them.

The first one that stands out to me is when WWE Hall of Famer, George "The Animal" Steele, came to the ballpark. For those of you who don't know, Steele is well known for his craziness in the ring. His signature thing would be tearing apart the turnbuckle and eating the insides. For pregame, we had him ref a turnbuckle sandwich eating contest, which included me and my boss, who posed as a player from the other team. Steele got into it as he slammed my boss' face into his sandwich and flipped the table, signaling me as the victor. It was quite a site. He went up onto the concourse and signed autographs throughout the game, making sure he had a

one-on-one conversation with each fan. While that was a very fun time, we had an act at the stadium called Cowboy Monkey Rodeo. Yes, cowboy monkeys. What are they? They are little monkeys that ride border collies and they heard ram. Not possible? Wrong. These highly trained dogs have these monkeys safely strapped onto a saddle on their backs to keep them secure. The dogs do most of the work, but its the monkey strapped in on top that draws everyone's attention. I was one of the "ranch hands" in the operation and was in charge of getting the ram out of the pen in the grounds area. These ram could charge at any time, but we grabbed their horns with care to make sure they got out there to be herded. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Fans loved it and even an agency against animal cruelty approved and found it to be very likable. There are videos of this all over youtube, but fortunately, i got to take a picture with them as you can see to the left.

Lastly, the Blue Rocks have two mascots, Rocky Bluewinkle and Mr. Celery. Most people do not know the tale behind Mr. Celery but I have some light to it. Back in 1999, the general manager for the Blue Rocks, Chris Kemple, attended the California League vs. Carolina League All-Star Game. Whenever a run was scored, a pink bunny came out of the outfield gate and did a dance. Kemple liked the idea so much that he brought it back to the Blue Rocks. After agreeing it was a good idea, the Rocks staff tried to decide what they would use as the mascot to run on the field. A month or so would go by with nothing being settled until one staff meeting. Kemple told the staff that something had to be done. Centerplate, the concession

aire for the Rocks, coincidentally had a bunch of costumes that they brought to different venues. Every time they brought the other costumes, they would somehow leave behind an old, beat up celery costume. So Kemple decided that the celery costume would be the start of this in Wilmington. It has captured

the eye of Blue Rocks fans and has become a tradition at each and every game...unless of course the Rocks get shutout. Whenever the Blue Rocks score, Mr. Celery emerges from his tunnel, does a dance and then returns to his home beneath the seats of Frawley. I was lucky enough to plan Mr. Celery's 10th Birthday Celebration. I sent out 40+ invitations to teams in the area and surrounding states. Twelve mascots showed up, which was more than they had ever had in Wilmington, and the fans LOVED it. To the right, is a picture of all of the mascots and myself. All of these guys were great to work with and know how to put on an amazing show for the crowd. Hip Hop, Hooter, the Hawk from St. Joe's as well as Socceroo and Mad Dog joined in the fun during Mr. Celery's birthday. It was that day, July 11th, where I knew that minor league baseball was where I belonged. All the planning and work to get mascots out to the game came together and was a great hit. Mr. Celery got a recent makeover as you can see to the left. It is much more modern looking than the celery in the middle of the birthday picture.

Well, that about wraps up most of the stuff I did in Wilmington. There is so much more to say but this highlights most of it. The season has 7 more home games and then I must move on to the next step in my career. This experience will be one I will never forget and would like to thank the entire Rocks staff for making this a kick-ass 2010.