As seen on the Rochester Press Box
When the Rochester Red Wings lost a franchise record 19 straight games earlier this month, a couple of things happened. First there was no noticeable drop-off in attendance, in fact the games actually became more compelling as the team tried to stop the streak. And second, the fans remained supportive. When the Wings finally won; they got a standing ovation. Why is that?
Maybe we see ourselves mirrored in the baseball team’s dysfunction. These are not the best of times. Consider where we find ourselves as a country and it’s not a pretty sight. And for a minor league baseball team, frankly, the stakes just aren’t very high. So, it’s easy to view the team’s plight in a sympathetic light.
Back in 1962, the New York Mets were the most lovable of losers in a city still hurting from the departure of the Dodgers and Giants for the west coast. The very first edition of that team was not a pretty sight. The Mets were last in all of baseball in hitting, pitching and fielding.
Statistics back that up. So it probably isn’t a surprise that they lost a modern-day record 120 games. They lost their first nine and followed that up with losing streaks of 17, 13 and eleven. They had not one, but two twenty game losing pitchers. One of whom, Roger Craig famously said, “You have to be pretty good to lose twenty games.” And he would know. He did it twice. And this was not the result of playing for the future. The ’62 Mets were the second oldest team in baseball.
In early May New York purchased Marv Throneberry from Baltimore. He became the fan favorite. Marvelous Marv hit a team high 16 home runs while making 17 errors at first base. In a game played in June, Throneberry hit what would have ordinarily been a triple, but was called out for missing first base. As 72-year-old manager Casey Stengel shuffled out to protest, he was cautioned not to argue too vehemently. Throneberry had also missed second base. You can’t make this stuff up.
Yet the fans enthusiastically turned out to see this team play. In 1962, the Mets outdrew eight of the established baseball franchises while competing against the cross-town Yankees, who were on their way to another World Series title in the Mickey Mantle era.Through it all, Stengel kept perspective. “Without losers, where would winners be,” he said. It’s no less true today.
Bill–I’ve been a fan of the Wings since 1958…the year the Dodgers and Giants transferred to the West Coast.
It isn’t hard to see why the fans in NY supported the Mets in 1962. They were starved for National League baseball after a 5 year absence and it really didn’t matter how good or bad that new team was. Baseball was back!
For the Red Wings, its a bit different isn’t it. As Bob Matthews pointed out just before he retired, and GM Dan Mason has reinforced…people don’t go to minor league baseball games just for the baseball anymore. They indicated, and its true, that you could do an exit poll and find out, especially with the younger fans, that they probably didn’t know who the opponent was nor did they even know the score of the game.
But they did remember the fireworks, the food and drink, and all the various gimmicks the team has painstakingly put together, to lure fans to the games. Full disclosure…I go to the games for the baseball and always have. I know I’m definitely in the minority.
So I’m not that surprised that attendance hasn’t suffered due to a pretty lousy team this year. I will suggest that had the team remained competitive it MAY have been able to create an uptick in the crowds as summer wore on. We won’t ever know. But things are so different in minor league sports these days.
Before cable and internet, Wings fans loved the Orioles as much as the Wings. The city had tons of Oriole fans. They had a footprint here. The O’s provided us with some amazing talent. But it ended. The Twins came and the fans politely welcomed their prospects. There were few converts as to switching from O’s fans to Twins. Wings never won a Championship under the Twins banner.
Now we have the Nationals. So far, there is NO footprint and there are maybe 10 Nats fans in Rochester, if I’m being generous. We are catching them at low tide. Two miserable seasons and the farm system is trying to recover. The parent team may lose well over 100 this season. The revolving door on the Wings roster spins out of control. Clearly the fans who show up, do so to simply enjoy a summers night outside, with friends, quaffing a brew and munching a hotdog. The game? Meh.
I wish it weren’t so. I wish the league had some status again. But MLB doesn’t care a bit about that anymore. They try and sell the ‘excitement’ of a one game playoff for the ‘championship of AAA–and at a neutral site no less. Whoopie!
So are we ‘winning’? In the broad sense, as you wrote, yes we are…because at least we still have AAA baseball in town. But in another sense, for the few of us left…we haven’t won since 1997 and it would be fun to have a real good team again. Someone has to win it all each year….why not us?
thanks for your article.