Barons Pick Up the Pace This Season
The Birmingham Barons have their first home game of the season Wednesday against the Montgomery Biscuits. Five years ago, the minor league baseball team moved into a brand new $64 million ballpark in downtown Birmingham: Regions Field. And this year the team plays host to the Southern League All-Star Game. The Barons have had their ups and downs, but there are some changes in store to keep fans hanging on.
The team won its season opener in Chattanooga. For the last five years, the Barons have benefitted from being downtown, Jonathan Nelson, Barons general manager says.
“You’re seeing an unprecedented level of civic excitement enthusiasm and just genuine, you know, a sense of being proud of the Barons, of the facility that we play in Regions Field,” he says.
Nelson wants to keep that excitement from fading. So one thing he’s adding this year? New beers, and trendy foods like chicken and waffles and buffalo wings.
Chicken and waffles might not be something you think of when you think of ballpark food. It’s a little awkward to eat. But it does bring in money. And that’s important, especially when admission ticket prices are relatively low. Barons tickets have held steady at $7 since the team moved from its old location at the Hoover Met.
“It might not be just what that price point is of the ticket. It’s everything else that goes with it and what people are spending when they come in,” says Rodney Paul, who teaches sport management at Syracuse University.
Plus, when there’s good food and drink and entertainment, people stay longer –to a point. Over the last several years, both the major and the minor leagues have been finding new ways to speed up the game. The Barons are no different. Nelson says this year, there’s a new pace-of-play rule:
“The change is when you go extra innings a team will have a runner at second base to begin the inning,” he says.
So there’s a runner automatically at second base when a game goes into extra innings. This, Nelson knows, is guaranteed to fill the purists with outrage. But he says on Friday nights when they’d set off fireworks after the games, it was a long wait for the grand finale, “and unfortunately a few years ago it seemed like every Friday night we went extra innings and they were turning into four-hour games.”
Noise ordinances and curfews made those late games tough, too. But Paul says the good thing about a $7 admission ticket is a lot of people have no problem ducking out early. Plus, Paul says fans reward teams that play faster games by going to more of them. And he says as long as people have a good time, it doesn’t even matter much whether the team wins.
Crew of fatal US military crash included Alabama father recently deployed
The six U.S. service members who died in the crash of a U.S. military refueling aircraft included an Alabama father who had just been promoted and deployed. The U.S. government released the identities of the deceased service members Saturday.
Alabama poised to drastically overhaul utility regulation. Will it lower electric bills?
The Alabama Senate unanimously voted to expand the public service commission, and create a Secretary of Energy to address rising electricity prices. A bill in the House would go even further, requiring rate case hearings and limiting utility profits.
Musher from Alabama is going for back-to-back Iditarod wins
Riches and paid appearances haven’t followed Jessie Holmes since he won the world’s most famous sled dog race, the Iditarod, last year. He doesn't mind.
Bill would move Alabama to closed primaries
Right now, any Alabama voter can participate in a primary election. Lawmakers in Montgomery took up a bill this week that would change that system.
Auburn football player uses NIL funds to open a community hub in Birmingham
Jourdin Crawford, a freshman defensive lineman at Auburn, used earnings from a Name, Image, and Likeness deal to give back to his hometown.
Ivey commutes death sentence of inmate whose accomplice fired fatal shot
Charles “Sonny” Burton was sentenced to death for the killing of Doug Battle during a 1991 robbery. However, another man shot Battle when Burton had left the building.
