I went to the Chihuahua's Play-Off Game last night, it was only the 2nd Chihuahua's game that I have ever been to. I am not an expert at Minor League Baseball, but what I know(and what remember from the Diablos) is that Minor League Baseball is more about give-aways, goofy promotions, and having fun. You are not necessarily there to see who wins, compared to if you were at a College Football or Basketball Game. That being said, the El Paso crowd last night had more passion about winning that Minor League Game, than possibly any Minor League Game in history. It amazes me how 90%+ of the fans were wearing Chihuahua's clothes and a large percentage were wearing multiple clothes(both Shirts and Caps), even the large amount of people wearing personalized jerseys was impressive to me.
In a tribute to Strelzin and how he trained the El Paso fans, it also impressed me(and gave me flashbacks to my childhood) when the El Paso fans on our own(with no help or direction from the PA Announcer) would start chanting "We Want a Hit" and soon 75% of the stadium was chanting this(again, the fans were doing this on our own with no Cheerleaders, PA Announcer, etc. instructing us to do it).
I was impressed that El Paso sold-out a Play-Off Game(including packing the grass area behind Center Field) with less than one week's notice to buy tickets and competing against 12 or so High School Football Games which were also taking place at the same time all across the city. I was also impressed with how we arrived 20 minutes late to a sold-out game, but still found a parking meter on Stanton Street, less than a 7 minute walk from the Stadium. Even just walking around Downtown El Paso after the game is starting to turn into a nice little walk with so many new businesses and things to look at.
The Chihuahua's Ownership Group is a group of El Pasoans who wanted to bring something special to benefit El Paso and to help improve our quality of life. As an example of this, the Chihuahua's committed to donating all profits to charities and due to this you are starting to see the El Paso Chihuahua's name associated with sponsoring many local events around town. But the other area why this philosophy is great, is because when you are at the game, you see how the money is being invested back into the product/fan experience, they are NOT trying to maximize profits. An example of this is that every single stair way in the stadium has an Usher on it, they see your ticket and walk you to your seat. They then walk the stairs at every inning break. Most stadiums might only assign only one or two Ushers per section, instead the Chihuahua's are more involved with investing into their product/fan experience and not as involved with maximizing efficiency as most Owners would be. In fact, most Owners would probably be looking at the Chihuahua's as being at a high level right now to sell the team for a nice profit, but Mountain Star does not have those intentions. At the beginning of this year, I was at a meeting in Las Cruces, which featured a lot of Las Cruces' top Business People and Elected Officials and it was amazing to hear even the Las Cruces Officials talk about how this BallPark has been one of the greatest things for our area in the past 50 years( they were even ranking it up there with the new $400 million dollar train facility being built in Santa Teresa).
My question is: When do the Stephanie Townsend Allayas and other people who fought against the BallPark so much, finally admit that they were wrong? When do these people who were so public and spoke with so much hate & accusation, now finally admit in public that they were wrong and this has been great for El Paso?
In a tribute to Strelzin and how he trained the El Paso fans, it also impressed me(and gave me flashbacks to my childhood) when the El Paso fans on our own(with no help or direction from the PA Announcer) would start chanting "We Want a Hit" and soon 75% of the stadium was chanting this(again, the fans were doing this on our own with no Cheerleaders, PA Announcer, etc. instructing us to do it).
I was impressed that El Paso sold-out a Play-Off Game(including packing the grass area behind Center Field) with less than one week's notice to buy tickets and competing against 12 or so High School Football Games which were also taking place at the same time all across the city. I was also impressed with how we arrived 20 minutes late to a sold-out game, but still found a parking meter on Stanton Street, less than a 7 minute walk from the Stadium. Even just walking around Downtown El Paso after the game is starting to turn into a nice little walk with so many new businesses and things to look at.
The Chihuahua's Ownership Group is a group of El Pasoans who wanted to bring something special to benefit El Paso and to help improve our quality of life. As an example of this, the Chihuahua's committed to donating all profits to charities and due to this you are starting to see the El Paso Chihuahua's name associated with sponsoring many local events around town. But the other area why this philosophy is great, is because when you are at the game, you see how the money is being invested back into the product/fan experience, they are NOT trying to maximize profits. An example of this is that every single stair way in the stadium has an Usher on it, they see your ticket and walk you to your seat. They then walk the stairs at every inning break. Most stadiums might only assign only one or two Ushers per section, instead the Chihuahua's are more involved with investing into their product/fan experience and not as involved with maximizing efficiency as most Owners would be. In fact, most Owners would probably be looking at the Chihuahua's as being at a high level right now to sell the team for a nice profit, but Mountain Star does not have those intentions. At the beginning of this year, I was at a meeting in Las Cruces, which featured a lot of Las Cruces' top Business People and Elected Officials and it was amazing to hear even the Las Cruces Officials talk about how this BallPark has been one of the greatest things for our area in the past 50 years( they were even ranking it up there with the new $400 million dollar train facility being built in Santa Teresa).
My question is: When do the Stephanie Townsend Allayas and other people who fought against the BallPark so much, finally admit that they were wrong? When do these people who were so public and spoke with so much hate & accusation, now finally admit in public that they were wrong and this has been great for El Paso?
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