From a professional and personal standpoint, Friday will never be the same for me. It was a badge of honor to be on Hal's call list. |
Hal was a real journalist. He grew up in a time when newspapers were kings and always kept the sense that the printed word was magic. |
It is amazing that this park is 12, going on 13, years old because we truly believe it is still one of the premier sports facilities in the country. It's incumbent of this organization to do everything we can to keep it that way. |
It is extremely preliminary in the discussions. All we did was send them a very generic basic spring-training diagram. |
It's an annual rite of spring for us to chat about our future [Spring Training] home. We'll be here in '07. To look beyond that, we don't know. |
It's one piece of the puzzle. It's a nice first step. |
Our female market demographic research showed there were 200 percent more women watching Indians games last season. Grady is the big reason. It's manifested in the 'Mrs. Sizemore' T-shirts. |
The first thing we looked at was what we did and how successful we were after 9/11. We called our radio partner (WTAM-AM 1100) and kicked around some ideas. |
The normal trend in pro sports is that you will realize a spike [in ticket sales] a year after you enjoy success. That's what we're experiencing right now. Fans have embraced this team. They have confidence in what we accomplished last year. |
There's a basic understanding that we can revisit this thing year to year. We need to figure this thing out. |
These are all very positive signs. |
We need to upgrade those. We have the smallest, oldest stadium [in Chain of Lakes Park, which was built in the 1960s], but that's not a huge negative, because it's a charming place. The facility is the real issue. |
We still expect to be in Winter Haven in 2006 and 2007, and we're still exploring options. |
We work hard to be family-affordable entertainment. Baseball is the only major-league pro sport that is geared to families, which we at the Indians take very seriously. There are food items, souvenirs and ticket plans to fit every person's pocketbook. |
We're open to hearing about a new facility. What we've asked the city is to show us some plans. I don't think we're there yet. |