Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407200092
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Salem had the exhilarating kind of day those moonwalkers had 25 years ago, except there were no small steps involved, only giant leaps.
The citizens didn't just vote to approve the construction of a new $5 million baseball park. They must have thought it was a ground-breaking, the way they shoveled over the opposition. For those of you scoring at home, it was 2,236 to 398.
It wasn't a referendum. It was a rout.
Then, the NCAA gave that field of dreams a Division III World Series and threw in a men's basketball Final Four, too.
The Buccaneers didn't play, and they still won. At the polls, these guys with the eye-patched, cowhide-head logo gained much more than they could in any standings.
The Carolina League franchise is working on its 13th straight losing half-season, but 81/2 months from now it should be occupying one of the best Class A stadiums in baseball's bushes.
Not only the NCAA wants to bring its Division III World Series to the new yard by the Boulevard. The parent Pittsburgh Pirates, who had expressed concern about the condition of Municipal Field in holding off Salem on a new player development contract, have phoned Bucs owner Kelvin Bowles.
``A couple of weeks ago, Pittsburgh called and wanted to know if we wanted to sign for two or four years,'' Bowles said Tuesday from Wilmington, Del., where the Carolina League All-Star Game will be played tonight. ``I said, `I thought the stadium situation was a concern.'''
If it was, it no longer is. The Pirates' farmhands may be back, but the Bucs may stop here. Bowles and his club vice president and general manager, Sam Lazzaro, are considering a new nickname.
The Salem Sliders? One thing is certain: They will will be the Salem Somethings.
When Salem asked for help in building a $5 million ballpark, it didn't get it. The baseball fans in Roanoke city and county - and Buccaneers' surveys say 55 percent of their crowds are residents of those jurisdictions, compared to 21 percent from the club's hometown - owe a huge thank you to Salem.
It was less than seven months ago when Bowles expected to sell his club. He didn't think Salem would consider building a ballpark. The franchise he bought in 1985 for $175,000 was worth about $2 million.
With a new park, he can add about another six zeroes. A story on the business pages of this newspaper a few weeks ago said the Buccaneers had been losing money but were now making a small profit in some seasons.
What it didn't say is that Bowles' franchise, with a new ballpark, is worth more than 1,500 percent more than when he bought it.
Now, he'll be keeping the franchise, and he'll be digging deeper into his pocket, too. A new ballpark will be wonderful, but the atmosphere at the new site will be mostly fashioned by the Buccaneers' bucks.
Remember how Roanoke's once-melting hockey fortunes solidified in a new facility last winter? If the Salem club tries to squeeze old nickels until the buffaloes burp, then the ballpark experience won't be what it could be. Bowles said that won't happen.
``We realize we're going to have to hire a lot more people, including several more full-timers, and we will,'' Bowles said. ``We're going to have to have more people in group sales, more people in media relations, more ushers, more concessions people.
``Salem is going to build a first-class stadium. I realized that when I went on the tour of some other ballparks with the Salem people. I know how they normally do things in Salem, and we'll run things in the new park the same way.''
Bowles can't say his franchise will have the best park in the Carolina League. After all, Durham's park, under construction and opening next season, is a $17-million project, but Salem's attitude should add to its spending.
``The NCAA wouldn't be bringing all that it has to Salem if it didn't see that the people here care about doing things right,'' said Dan Wooldridge, the Old Dominion Athletic Conference commissioner who started the Roanoke Valley down the NCAA championship road several years ago.
``Salem did the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl so well last winter and the women's softball championships so well [in May] that the NCAA saw how the athletes were appreciated.
``All of that and building a new ballpark, what it says is that when a community and its government makes a commitment, when its citizens get behind things is the right way, it can accomplish some really great things.''
And whatever they're eating in Salem this morning, it must be the breakfast of champions.
Write to Jack Bogaczyk at the Roanoke Times & World News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, 24010.
by CNB