Springfield Cardinals General Manager Matt Gifford has several reasons to smile.
On the field, there’s the Texas League championship title. The last time a team called the Springfield Cardinals won a minor league championship was 1939.
In the front office, there’s the regular season gate receipts that bounced back from last year’s historic lows at Hammons Field. Attendance was up by 5 percent, and with 352,674 tickets sold – roughly 5,111 per game – the team ranked fourth in the Texas League.
Two more reasons for Gifford to smile are center fielder Oscar Taveras and second baseman Kolten Wong. Taveras earned the 2012 Texas League MVP with a .321 batting average, and Wong has been described by the St. Louis press as the second baseman of the future. He’s currently playing in the elite Arizona Fall League for top prospects across minor league baseball.
Weeks after the Sept. 15 championship game against the Frisco RoughRiders, Gifford said the team doesn’t intend to develop a marketing plan to capitalize on the historic hardware.
“We’ll celebrate the championship, but not sell the championship,” he said, noting a goal of the AA team is to develop Major League Baseball-caliber players for the St. Louis club, meaning many of the top players move up in the system each year.
Gifford is pleased with those results, too. Of the 32 players currently on the St. Louis Cardinals roster, 21 have played in Springfield. Add the three pitchers who have had rehab stints in Springfield, and three quarters of today’s St. Louis team have worn a Springfield jersey, Gifford said. At the final game Oct. 3 in St. Louis, eight of the team’s nine starters had played in Springfield.
“The future of the St. Louis Cardinals runs through Springfield,” Gifford said.
In addition to developing the young men as baseball players, the Cardinals instituted a personal development program at the direction of St. Louis manager Mike Matheny. Through counseling, Gifford said the program allows players to mature into responsible citizens. The team also offers English classes to help the Latin players become more comfortable away from their native language. For example, Dominican Republic native Taveras spoke little English when he joined the club, but after a season of classes he became adept at media interviews with no language problems.
For the increase in ticket sales, Gifford credits in-game promotions, including the same giveaways fans received at Busch Stadium – replica World Series rings and trophies. The Springfield club also promoted $1 brats on Thursdays and $1 hot dogs on Tuesdays, and emphasized group sales. Fewer rain dates didn’t hurt attendance either, Gifford said.
Great Southern Bank, a founding partner when the Cardinals came to town eight years ago, sponsored the dollar-dog nights, and Communications and Marketing Director Kelly Polonus said the bank is interested in renewing that deal.
“Tuesdays were great because it’s hard to get home from work, round up the kids and have a meal before the game,” she said. “The dollar dogs give families an affordable meal. Hot dogs and baseball – a great fit for the fans.” She said the bank paid $8,000 to sponsor the promotion.
Other promotions under consideration include Texas League champion replica rings.
Still, the team has ground to make up to rival Texas League attendance leader Frisco and to climb back to the Springfield club’s inaugural year.
The team in suburban Dallas recorded attendance of 488,224, or 7,076 per game, head and shoulders above the Corpus Christi Hooks and Tulsa Drillers in the 380,000s and 370,000s, respectively. With the hype around the Cardinals’ first year in Springfield, average game attendance exceeded 7,500. The team’s 2012 ticket tally does not include 8,000 tickets sold for the final game, which was rained out, and playoff game sales at Hammons Field, officials note.
