Five Questions: Matt Gifford

Q: Where has the organization made the most strides in its first two years?

A: One is customer relations. It’s about making it feel like home for Cardinals fans. It’s creating that mini Busch Stadium feeling that Cardinals fans look for. I think the respect of the game is very important, but we also make sure that the ushers and the people working the concession stands are so friendly and happy to see them. It’s something that we stress and something that they excel at.

Q: What is the organization looking to improve on?

A: You can always get better – you can always smile a little more, shake another hand, make sure people are having fun. We’ve talked about it from Day 1: Springfield Cardinals baseball isn’t about winning and losing. It’s about having fun, and that’s something that needs to continually evolve and change, to make sure people don’t get bored coming to the ballpark. It’s always fun to see the future (major league players), but it’s also fun to see the neat stuff on the video boards or between innings. That’s stuff that we work all winter on, talking to the other clubs about it, making sure that when people come next year they see something a little bit different.

Q: Before the 2006 season, the team removed about 750 seats from Hammons Field to add aisles. How did fans react?

A: In the long run, on a Friday night, we probably cost ourselves money by taking those seats out. We had some frustrated fans that would call on a Friday morning for tickets and couldn’t get them because they didn’t exist. It’s a fine line – it’s the restaurant that’s so busy nobody goes there anymore. I think that’s something that we fought … even in 2005. We want to make sure there’s always room for people to come in and watch and have fun. … I had people come up to me and thank me and the organization for the addition, having more room to move up and down and not feel like they were on top of the other people in the rows.

Q: With the St. Louis club in the playoffs, has the Springfield organization been providing support for the playoff effort?

A: We had some staffers go up (to St. Louis) and help out with the ballpark and lend a hand. We had a lot of people from our food service side up there this weekend at Busch. We also had (relief pitcher) Josh Kinney – who got (San Diego Padres catcher Mike) Piazza out two days in a row – on the playoff roster for St. Louis. We feel like he’s the first Springfield Cardinal to wear the birds on the bat, and we’re all very proud of him.

Q: What’s the newest offering at the stadium concession stands?

A: One thing that we added for the last home stand and a half, was the Cardinals Creamery, where you can mix six different flavors of ice cream and 14 add-ins in an old-fashioned Cardinal helmet. That became very popular. The other item, which actually got a chuckle out of every GM at the Texas League meetings, was the beer float that we came up with. Instead of a root beer float, it’s a beer float. It’s Budweiser Select and vanilla ice cream. It’s kind of like a pale ale, and it keeps your beer cold. If you like beer and you like ice cream, the two go very well together, surprisingly.