There's more to baseball at House That Hammons Built

I saw this firsthand for the first time during the Springfield Cardinals’ April 12 regular season home opener.

Beyond the fact that renowned Springfield businessman John Q. Hammons built the $32 million stadium and threw out another first pitch, business names and promotions cover every corner of the park. It seems the only sacred places are the field itself and player uniforms. Even the dugouts are wallpapered with business names, albeit companies without distinct local ties: New Era hats and Hunter, a John Morrell & Co. hot dog brand.

Area companies have jumped into the game. The outfield walls are covered with names such as Metro Builders Supply, CoxHealth, Steak n Shake and Empire Bank. Center-field scoreboard ads plug Price Cutter’s employee stock ownership plan and Great Southern Bank’s Cards Checking. Even the rolled-up field tarp proclaims Carol Jones, Realtors’ name.

Then there are the promotional events each half inning, with the implied goal of crowd entertainment. But in the end, it’s all about name recognition, and a couple of promos score big time, while others should be sent down to single-A.

Here’s how I rate the ads and business promos the first week at Hammons Field:

• My favorite: Missouri Eye Institute’s Clear View Move of the Game. A lucky general admission ticket holder gets escorted to a seat behind home plate, “so you can see better.”

• Most curious ad: Hiland Dairy Foods billboard on the clubhouse/training center wall that says, “Milk – the original sports drink.” Huh?

• Coolest promo: Cleaning the Diamond. After three innings, the grounds crew cleans the infield to the tune of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” On the center-field video screen, psychedelic images of diamonds move in and out of focus. Can you guess the sponsor? Justice Jewelers.

• Most clever ad: Tie.

As a bloopers clip shows on-field collisions and dropped balls on the video screen, comes the line, “From bumps and bruises …” In the next scene, a fielder dives face-first into a wall and “… to neurosurgery” completes the phrase from CoxHealth.

Rick’s Automotive’s Guess the Attendance also scored clever points, putting a twist on the “What’s behind door No. 1?” game. Three garage doors display three attendance numbers, and fans guess the correct one. For the record, attendance April 12 was 8,831.

• Most fun promo: Mattax Neu Prater sponsors the “Keep your eye on the ball” video screen game where a baseball slips under one of three Cardinals hats, and off they go, revolving in every direction. Fan participation is always big on this one – even up in the press box.

• Most embarrassing: Chevy Dealers of the Ozarks Monster Truck Race. This one’s embarrassing on a couple of fronts. First, the race’s remote control cars never got going. So Contestant A took matters into his own hands, picked up his car and sprinted toward first base. Innovative idea, but he tripped over the bag and belly-flopped on the infield dirt. Ouch.

• Most confusing ads: St. John’s and Cox each call themselves the “official such-and-such of the Springfield Cardinals.” Here’s the skinny: St. John’s provides sports medicine, fitness and rehab programs and education, and player medical service at home games, while Cox runs the stadium first aid station. Cardinals employees and players also can use Cox’s Meyer Center.

• Most entertaining: St. John’s Power Stretch following the 7th inning’s “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” Many notables – including Tom Finnie, Carol Jones and Dr. Donald Wantuck – perform choreographed stretches on camera, while “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” plays over the public-address system. What good sports. This is worth the price of admission.

• Most inexpensive ad: The long line of Conco trucks parked on company grounds just beyond the left field fence.

• Most productive ad: The Springfield Cardinals’ first official run in Hammons Field involved a business. Travis Hanson’s fourth-inning line drive to right-center field bounced off Steak n Shake’s “easier way to get a double” ad. Hanson must prefer three patties on his steak burgers, as he stretched the hit into a run-scoring triple.

Ads aren’t the only places business names hang. Each luxury suite door proudly displays the companies that own the approximately $37,000-a-year boxes. Among them: Noble, Price Cutter, Conco, Loren Cook, Springfield Underground, The Signature Bank, Stamina Products and SRC.

Other items of note:

Spotted: Husband and wife Joe and Christine Daues taking turns leading the half-inning promotional games. Shouting through the stadium P.A. system, Christine Daues cheered on two contestants as they stuffed monster hamburgers down their throats in the Hardee’s Thickburger Eating Contest. Is there a winner in that contest?

Spotted, Part II: The wave. It took the fans until the eighth inning (about 9 p.m.) to start this baseball tradition. Perhaps they were just trying to stay warm during a 2-0 game on a chilly night.

Sounds from the press box: During the Scrambler’s Egg Toss, where two teams toss eggs into buckets, someone asks, “Are they real eggs?” Logical question. The answer: “I saw one bounce.” The better answer: “Maybe they’re hardboiled.”

Eric Olson is Springfield Business Journal news editor.

[[In-content Ad]]