“We [don’t] Love This Team”

In this week’s Play Ball, we delve into the Bisons’ miserable April record.

Check it out!

“Don’t Ask… Don’t Tell”

This week’s “Play Ball”. Check it out!

On Opening Night this past Friday, it was “standing room only” in a packed, and I mean packed, pressbox as the Bisons opened their home season. By Saturday and today, things had settled down to the regulars… On the media side, Mike Harrington from the Buffalo News, Jon Splett from here at WNY Media, Dave Ricci and Mike Haim from Metro Source. In the upper tier… Kevin Lester the official scorer, Jon Dare doing the gamecast on milb.com and PR Director Brad Bisbing.

So as the game wears on, and todays was almost a three hour affair, the discussion in the box usually evolves into other things baseball and other stuff going on around the sports world. Today’s highlights…

–The Yankees have located and unearthed the Red Sox jersey encased in concrete in the new Yankee Stadium. It had been buried there by a construction worker and admitted Sox fan. Criminal charges might be filed against the renegade employee. The jersey will be auctioned and proceeds go to the Jimmy Fund.

–The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs are now 0-11 to start the season. Mike Harrington couldn’t be happier. The organization has made a real mess of things since moving the team from Ottawa after last season. Mike H says an 0-20 start would be a real lesson in humility.

–So when’s a no-hitter NOT a no-hitter. My partner Pete is still yearning to see his first no-no live, and in pressbox tradition, once both teams on the field record their first hits of the day the “see ‘ya tomorrow Farrell” refrain gets called out. So… Brian Slocum pitched five hitless innings for the Herd on Saturday before being pulled, since he was on a strict pitch limit. I’m texting Pete, who was working yesterday, letting him know that the Bisons are 4 innings away and he’s not in the building, at which point the posse chimes in. NO! Slocum is out and so is the no hitter. I argue back… but what about a combined no hitter by the Bisons pitching staff? “Doesn’t count” is the reply.

So I checked the IL information book, which we received with our media pack on Opening Night… the last IL no hitter was by Scranton/WB’s Jeremy Cummings on 9/3/06… Before that, Jason Hammel AND Juan Salas of the Durham Bulls no-hit Columbus on 7/16/06. How ’bout that!

I didn’t touch this one with a ten foot pole today. I will let Pete argue his case with the posse at his next ball game.

–Toreyisms… Win or lose, Manager Torey Lovullo always throws out positives, happy thoughts and sprinkles fairy dust in the air in his postgame comments. Today was no exception, after a 6-4 loss to Toledo, and now the Bisons have lost 5 of their last 6. Said Lovullo “All in all I’m pleased. We just need a break to go our way. We need to get the ball rolling on our side.” Funny thing is… Dave R and Mike H are wizards at nailing just what Torey is going to say before he says it. Today was no exception.

–Someone brought up the topic of serving beer in the pressbox. I think Jon S jumped on that idea (gee how shocking!) At that point I brought up that there was one location in our USRT travels where indeed a beer tap was available to the media in a working press situation: it was Ho-Ho-Kam Park, the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs in Mesa Arizona, and yes, all you can drink draft beer was available in the media room, free of charge. “I’ll see what I can do about that here” quipped Brad B, rolling his eyes the whole time. Yeah I won’t hold my breath for that anytime soon, but a dessert tray would be nice (So where has Judy Kelly, wife of alternate Official Scorer Mike Kelly, been anyway? She frequently brought in fresh baked chocolate chip cookies last season.)

–Down in the clubhouse, Mike Haim pointed out that Torey Lovullo was wearing some sort of device that is purportedly recording his own press conferences. Perhaps to better improve his own speaking skills, we wondered? We’ll be paying closer attention to that one to be sure.

Just three home games into the year and already having a blast. Doing the media thing at Bisons games is an awesome environment… great camaraderie among the media folk and the team staff. It’s gonna be a fun summer for sure!

Lots of views of their snazzy new ballpark and their scary looking mascot. Have yourself a looksie… 

But c’mon now? “Every Game Is An Event”?! Rich Baseball must love this old chestnut… hey it played well here in Buffalo! 

That being the Buffalo Bisons, who are in Buffalo for a couple days to get settled, hold practices, and then hit the road to open the regular season this Thursday. The Bisons will play four at Norfolk and then four more at Richmond before their home opener on Friday, April 11 at 6:05PM at Dunn Tire Park against the Toledo Mud Hens.

Aaron Laffey has been named the Opening Day starter by Manager Torey Lovullo. And why not? Laffey was 6-0 for the Herd last season with a 0.87 ERA before his call up to Cleveland, and on most teams he would already be on a major league roster. Lovullo is still tweaking his hitting lineup in preparation for Thursday, but the deep outfield will include last year’s MVP Ben Francisco, Jason Cooper returning, and also newcomer Jason Tyner, who was with the Bisons in 2004 for their championship run.

The popular Fridaynightbash parties will be moved to the plaza in front of Dunn Tire Park this season, so that even fans without a ticket can take part in the festivities, reports Brad Bisbing, PR Director for the team. (Side note here - that it took so long for the Bisons upper management to recognize Brad and give him the appropriate job title for the hard work he does is outrageous. Better late than never I guess.)

Brad and other Bisons front office staffers spent a few days in the new home for Rich Baseball’s AA baseball affiliate, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, who have moved from Wichita and are opening a new ballpark there. “The new ballpark is awesome” said Bisbing. “The community there is so pumped about their new team.”

It was such a neat feeling just being back at the ballpark, seeing the players do their warmups, reconnecting with the team and seeing fellow media guys who also took part in the happenings. Dave Ricci who reports for Sports and Leisure and MLB.com, among other assignments, will be covering the team, and Jon Splett at our sister site Buffalo Baseball Blog here at WNYMedia, will be doing his excellent season long coverage. Both guys were there tonight and are primed for the season.

Pete and I will be doing our regular column for Artvoice, “Play Ball”, which debuted in last week’s edition, and will be at the ballpark all season long. If you’re at a Bisons game this season, you know where to find us!!

No we did not park in (Cleveland Indians Media Director) Bart Swain’s space. And rather than Bart being Bart, the Indians media office was actually very nice to us, welcoming us to Winter Haven and writing us media passes on the spot even though Geoff Kelly’s fax from the Artvoice office was nowhere to be found.

Today we headed to Winter Haven, home of the Cleveland Indians, to have one more look at a ballpark and training complex thatwill soon be no more. The Indians are moving to Arizona after this season, and looks now that this facility will be razed and condos and shopping will take its place. In a way that’s too bad, because this is one of the last throwback ballparks down here in Florida, but one by one places like this are giving way to glitzy and glamorous new ballparks with all the bells and whistles.

We ran into Jim Rosenhaus, former Bisons play by play guy who now is part of the Indians broadcast crew. Rosie was his usual nice self and hung out with us for a while to talk about the final days here in Winter Haven, and asked about a lot of people back in Buffalo. Man we miss this guy! But we are happy he is doing so well in his job here in Cleveland.

On to the game we saw… Jake Westbrook was on the mound for the Tribe, and was absolutely filthy, throwing six perfect innings on only 65 pitches. The perfect game was finally broken up in the 7th when reliever Jorge Julio gave up a rope double to Atlanta’s Chipper Jones with two outs. By then it was 7-0 Cleveland and they would go on to win 8-0.

So a question… had the Indians gone on to record a combined no-hitter or perfect game, would this have counted towards Peter’s quest to see a no-hitter in person, a yet unfulfilled dream? We text messaged the Buffalo News’ Mike Harrington, who is the ultimate authority on these things, and Mike quickly responded with an emphatic “NO!”. At the end of the day, practice baseball is still practice baseball.

We booked out of Winter Haven after the 7th inning stretch (thankfully just Take Me Out To The Ballgame and none of that Dead Fat Woman’s Song,) and made the 15 mile drive west to Lakeland. Why, you wonder? The Bisons were there to play the Toledo Mud Hens, and we arrived just in time to see the Herd record their final two outs in a 6-2 win. So we chatted a bit with Manager Torey Lovullo (interesting how the team takes the bus back to camp but Torey drives in his own car), got a few comments which will be part of a special “Play Ball” column in this week’s Artvoice, and headed back to Orlando.

Tomorrow it’s Brighthouse Networks Field in Clearwater, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, as the USRT Florida adventure continues.

The main walkway outside Chain of Lakes Park

A full house on hand… just two more games to go for this ballpark after this one

The Bisons, meanwhile, play their games on a practice field, with just a handful of die hards looking on… this pic taken at the Tigers facility in Lakeland

Talking baseball with Bisons skipper Torey Lovullo down in Lakeland

September 17, 1960 was the date of the final game ever played at Offermann Stadium… a 5-3 Bisons loss to Toronto in the International League playoffs. (Wonder if obnoxious Toronto fans came down for that one, waving their tin foil Governors Cups )This hallowed home for Bisons baseball for decades, at the corner of Michigan and East Ferry, would be torn down, to be replaced by a public school building. With that demolition went all the ghosts and great moments and great memories and wonderful baseball.

For the third year in a row, the Buffalo Bisons will be sponsoring a really nifty giveaway as part of their promotional schedule at Dunn Tire Park. On August 20 the first 4000 lucky fans through the Swan Street turnstiles will receive their very own replica of Offermann Stadium. In 2006 the team gave away replicas of Dunn Tire Park, and last year’s giveaway was a replica of War Memorial Stadium, and these were no cheesy trinkets. Both pieces were stunning in their detail. I’ve got mine on display on the ledge between my dining room and living room.

Offermann was well before my time, so I have no memories of even being by there… just a few grainy photographs is all I’ve ever seen of the place. But as the promo date draws near, Pete and I are going to scour the stands and the press room looking for as many old codgers as we can find who might be willing to share an anecdote or two… should make for a good “Play Ball” column in Artvoice.

If you haven’t yet seen the awesome Bisons promotional schedule, check it out here.

Here is an aerial shot of Arvest Field, the new home of the Rich Baseball owned Northwest Arkansas Naturals (AA). The new stadium should be ready by March 15, plenty of time before Opening Day.

This article in the Northwest Arkansas News provides a good snapshot on all the things the team has in store for their inaugural season. During the final Bisons’ 2007 season homestand, we continually bumped into GM Eric Edelstein and his crew at Dunn Tire Park. They were here to observe every aspect of the Bisons operation.

Here’s some news which
hit so suddenly it caught us flat footed - another franchise will be on the move in the International League come 2009, and things are happening at breakneck speed.

After years and years of unsuccessfully trying to secure a replacement venue for The Diamond in Richmond, the team will be relocating to Lawrenceville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, as reported in today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution.

A 30-year lease was approved by the Gwinnett County Commission today. The lease calls for the Braves to pay $250,000 a year in rent for a new ballpark on a 12-acre site on Buford Drive, just off I-85. County officials signed the lease before actually coming up with a ballpark plan: their previous plan was for a $25-million, 5,500-seat ballpark suitable for an independent-league team, but the current plan is for a larger $40-million ballpark which would work for the Triple-A team. County officials were so eager to close the deal with the Richmond Braves they didn’t even identify a funding source for the new ballpark.

Additionally, a new web site for the “Gwinnett Braves” was hurriedly brought online, with some very rough sketches and a site plan for the new ballpark, and an icon inviting fans to reserve season tickets with a $100 deposit.

Although Gwinnett County must begin construction of their new stadium by April 1 and have it ready by March of 2009, they have yet to secure funding for the venue, only saying they hope to secure private financing.

Meanwhile, the shock is spreading across Richmond over this sudden turn of events.

The USRT made a journey to The Diamond in 2003, and what we found was a crappy, hastily built stadium made of concrete, located in the middle of nowhere next to a shabby industrial park and a bus terminal. We saw Third World clubhouses and player facilities, not to mention a pressbox mimicking a phone booth. And if you remember, the 2004 Governors Cup playoff games between the Buffalo Bisons and the R-Braves were all played at Dunn Tire Park, because The Diamond was underwater from a tropical storm and was deemed unplayable.

So looks like the USRT has TWO new International League venues to travel to in ‘09… Columbus’ Huntington Park and Gwinnett County in Georgia. It will be interesting to see if and when the League chimes in on this relocation, as this eliminates the natural rival for the Norfolk Tides and drives up travel costs and distances to go for just about everybody in the IL.

Update: More on this story at MiLB.com.

Last week’s announcement by the Buffalo Bisons that Torey Lovullo would be returning in 2008 for his third season as the Herd’s Manager made me very happy, but also came the realization that his time in Buffalo might soon be coming to an end.

Make no mistake, Torey is a great guy, and covering the team in the media becomes so much easier because this man always welcomes you into his office as on old friend, readily makes himself available for interviews and comments, and his love for the game and his role in it rubs off on anyone who gets the chance to get close to him. If there is one annoying thing about him, it is that he too joyous and positive. He never rebukes or calls out one of his players publicly after a subpar performance. He will always put a positive spin on the worst scenarios. I can only guess that he’s got be the world’s greatest dad, greatest husband and someone’s greatest best friend.

Take a look at Torey’s managerial statistics; he has enjoyed success at every level of the Cleveland chain, and has won championships at the A and AA level. His name was even kicked about this year for the Manager’s position in Pittsburgh.

Lovullo’s Managerial Statistics
2002 Columbus 79-60
2003 Kinston 73-66
2004 Kinston 88-50
2005 Akron 84-58
2006 Buffalo 73-68
2007 Buffalo 75-67
Total 472-369 (.561)

But while he produced winning seasons in Buffalo, both in 2006 and 2007 the team failed to make the International League playoffs, a dubious streak unprecedented in the Buffalo-Cleveland relationship. During both seasons weird things happened in terms of injuries, callups, orders from the parent to play certain players, etc. which conspired to sabotage the team’s fortunes, but realize too that every AAA team that the Bisons face have quirky parent clubs and their own issues. When push came to shove, Buffalo didn’t get it done, and Dunn Tire Park has been dark post Labor Day now two years running.

So what will 2008 bring? Swirling around in the background is the possibility that this will be Cleveland’s last year with the Herd. Now under construction in downtown Columbus’ Arena District is the Columbus Clippers new ballpark, Huntington Park, set to open in 2009. Cleveland already has minor league affiliates in Akron and Lake County, and would covet the sizable Columbus market and the fan base they could grow there, as well as the buildout of a regional sports cable channel.

I’m assuming that the Bisons will make a full press to keep the Indians here… right from the Bob Richs on down the team has worked hard to cement personal relationships with the parent team, and have been proactive in spending on capital improvements to player facilities at the ballpark to keep the Indians happy.

We should get an indication early on what the Indian’s intentions are… if the team sucks and nobody gives a damn, you’ll know they are out of here (think 1994 with the Pirates, the worst stinkeroo season ever at the downtown ballpark).

Meanwhile, we all wish Torey Lovullo well - he has always been a fan favorite both as player in the 90s and as a manager. I am hoping he holds HIMSELF up to the highest standard in what could be an awkward and difficult year in Buffalo.

Perhaps you remember the story of baseball player Kazuhito Tadano, the Japanese pitcher who played parts of four seasons with the Buffalo Bisons as a member of the Cleveland Indians organization. He dazzled his way up the minor league ladder and ended up debuting in Cleveland in 2004, where he started four games and posted a 1-1 record and a 4.65 ERA that year.

But the story that blew up in 2003 had to do with Tadano’s past: in his college days at Tokyo’s Rikkyo University, he had appeared in a gay porn video, and now the news of this revelation threatened to derail his professional career.

The Indians quickly went into spin control, holding a news conference to tell all, with Tadano admitting his youthful indiscretion and insisting he was not gay and needed the money for college. His teammates shrugged it off, life went on, and the hub bub quickly died down.

But not in Japan, where Tadano was castigated and shunned by their professional baseball structure, and he was pretty much declared persona non grata.

Apparently time has healed, as this week it was learned that Tadano will return to play professional ball in Japan. He has signed to play for the Nippon Ham Fighters in Sapporo.

Like many, we too snickered when we first learned of Kaz’ cinematic adventures. Each year we come up with our kooky Bisons Listach and Hamilton Awards, and we were planning to add “The Kazuhito Tadano Lifetime Achievement Award” just like they do at the Oscars. We were going to have fun with this one.

But one day I changed my whole perspective on Kaz. It was after batting practice on an April day in 2005 and I walked into the Bisons locker room looking to find someone. There were some of the guys playing cards, others milling about with their equipment and yet others watching TV. At the far end of the clubhouse there was Kaz Tadano, sitting at a card table and quietly eating his meal. Alone. And I thought to myself, what kind of life can this be for a guy like that? Humiliated and shunned by people in his homeland for stupid nonsense, and now he has to move 10,000 miles from his home to earn a living and ply his trade. He knows little of the English language, has no one to talk to, no friends.

I talked with then Bisons Manager Marty Brown, who himself had played ball in Japan and knew what Kaz was going through being in a strange land far away from friends and loved ones. “He’ll find his favorite hangouts to eat, and places to do the things he likes to do. We all get through it.” Brown told me.

Pete and I decided to do a feature interview with Tadano in Artvoice, and it was not as easy as one would think. We had to arrange this through not only the Bisons media department, but with Tadano’s agent, where we had to submit a list of questions. (Stuff like “Did that leather dog collar worn in the movie chafe around the neck?” was out of bounds. *kidding*) Then we had to set up the actual interview with an engaging fellow named Taka, who would serve as interpreter.

The sit down finally took place after a Friday night Bisons game in May of 2005. Me, Pete, Kaz and Taka sitting in the clubhouse around that very same card table. For me it was the most fascinating and engaging player interview I ever did. Kaz Tadano was so thrilled to be blessed with the talents to be a pitcher, seized every day as another adventure, and shared amusing anecdotes about his experiences in Buffalo, such as the time his parents came to town looking for him, also knowing little English, only to find that their son had been promoted to Cleveland and had hurriedly left town. His first attempt to find Kuni’s on Elmwood became a day long adventure that would probably make a good movie in itself. Oh and as for the “I’m not gay” stuff? Let’s just say that neither Pete or I were buying that.

Normally such an interview would go 10-15 minutes. We spent over an hour and a half with Kaz and Taka that night, and he would have doubled that time if we had asked that of him that’s how nice and polite he was.

Tadano was a fun player to watch. Occasionally he would throw the “Tadano Eephus”, basically a hilarious looking Hail Mary type rainbow pitch which would find the strike zone. Tadano’s most forgettable Bisons outing came in 2005, when he surrendered back to back to back to back home runs to four consecutive hitters.

After leaving the Cleveland organization, Tadano signed on with the Oakland A’s, but never returned to the Bigs, spending the past two seasons in AAA Sacramento and AA Midland.

After having the chance to get to know this fine young man, we became big Kaz Tadano fans. We hope he finds peace, happiness, success and redemption back in his homeland.

The other day Hank Steinbrenner, Son of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, derisively stated “Does he want to go into the Hall of Fame as a Yankee, or a Toledo Mud Hen?” in regards to his third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

Well, that remark apparently didn’t sit to well with our friends at the Mud Hens front office, and they have responded by sending an offer sheet to Rodriguez’ agent Scott Boras.

Heh heh. Should the Buffalo Bisons be worried?

As today’ Toledo Blade states, it is a contract proposal that includes a bonus for hitting 75 home runs next year and leading them to 10 straight International League titles.

Fuuny stuff.

While many of us enjoyed the Buffalo Bisons of 2004 Cleveland Indians dispatch the New York Yankees in four games in the ALDS, I got to thinking how a long and productive era in Bisons history might be coming to an end after the next season. That’s when affiiliation agreements between MLB teams and MiLB teams expire, and the conventional wisdom is that the Cleveland Indians will be pairing up with Columbus as the Clippers open their spanking new downtown ballpark. Cleveland might be looking to tap the Columbus market as they regionalize their franchise, as well as establish their branding on the regional sports network Sportstime Ohio.

So should the Indians bid good bye to Buffalo, who will the be our new parent club come 2009? While there was a time when teams would come courting the Bisons, a perfect storm of events could happen that incredibly could leave Buffalo left with table scraps.

The big elephant in the room is the New York Mets, and when the last version of musical chairs happened two years ago, the Mets were dispatched to New Orleans in the PCL, and that has been a nightmare for the team. It would make a lot of sense for the Mets to come to Buffalo. But suprise, surprise. It is Syracuse who is making the big push to land the Mets. The hideous astroturf at Alliance Bank Stadium will soon be history as natural turf is being installed. The Chief’s long affiliation with the Blue Jays is wearing thin after a long string of losing seasons. And as the linked article says, the entire Syracuse baseball hierarchy is excited at the prospect of going after the Mets.

So if Cleveland bolts for Columbus, and the Mets end up off the board and heads to Syracuse, Buffalo’s next choice would then be the Pittsburgh Pirates, who at one time was Buffalo’s parent club. Pirates GM Neal Huntington knows the Buffalo team well, having once worked with the Indians farm system. The Bucs are now hooked up with Indianapolis, so what if they end up staying put?

That would leave the Toronto Blue Jays, which makes geographic sense but would offer little synergy between the two cities for several reasons. Additionally, one only needs to look at the record of the Jays’ farmhands at AAA in recent seasons and that does not inspire confidence.

Then of course, the Washington Nationals, who would be displaced from Columbus, would also be available, and would certainly want to stay in the International League.

One thing is for sure… there will be a two week window next September where any official franchise shifts will take place. But the quiet jockeying for position will begin months earlier, and hopefully the Bisons will be the team up to the task of choosing its own destiny.

The Buffalo Bisons were making a desperate push for a wild card playoff berth all weekend long, needing to win at Rochester and get help from Norfolk, who was playing Richmond.

Buffalo News beat writer Mike Harrington was at Frontier Field this weekend covering the showdown series, yet he took the time and trouble to send us regular text messages of all the relevant IL action, keeping us in the loop in real time.

The good friendships and close associations among the Buffalo Bisons media corps is something Peter and I truly treasure. There is no better sports writer at the Buffalo News than our MH!

Just off of the main entrance lobby at the Dell Diamond you can find this backlit display in their concourse, displaying the season long attendance progress for the Round Rock Express.

“We take great pride in being one of the top drawing teams in the Pacific Coast League, which is even more remarkable considering that our ballpark has a smaller capacity than others.” said Express President Jay Miller. “Our fans take great pride in showing their support, and this attendance meter is a nice way of engaging the fans in our progress.”

When the USRT was going full throttle a few years back, we used to constantly send these sort of ideas and suggestions, complete with pictures, to Buffalo Bisons VP/General Manager Mike Buczkowski. Never once did we ever get an acknowledgement, or a thank you, or a message that the things we sent along might merit some thought or consideration by the Bisons’ brain trust. So we stopped.

What do we know anyway! We’re just a couple of blokes writing for that hipster, earring wearing, pot smoking, drag queen homo newspaper.