2008 Gnat Field Expansion Party

[Sandgnats (Bill)]

The story is out and the world of PEBA should know: The Sandgnats organization shelled out some pretty big bucks to throw a party for the best fans in the world! Owner, Bill Hewitson was asked why he threw a party for fans, when most owners today would be content with just sellouts. Hewitson replied, “First of all, I love sellouts! (chuckling) I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t. The party we threw for the Crystal Lake fans was a simple idea of saying thanks for all of their support in 2007. Aside from being number one in PEBA in gate revenue in 2007, these fans are incredibly positive! I mean, you’ll never catch a Crystal Lake fan dumping beer on a player for committing an error. I’m sure they feel like it (I know I’ve wanted to at times), but they’re very classy and I appreciate that about our fans. The fans that fill these seats here at Gnat Field truly make me proud to be a PEBA owner! They are always out early and stay until the last pitch has been thrown. Mix in a never-ending dose of positivism and support, and it’s just about perfect! So the party is just my way of saying thank you and I hope it was well received.”

Well received, it was! Some forty to fifty thousand Sandgnats fanatics came through the turnstiles on Saturday, April 5, and it was absolutely free of charge! How’s that for fan appreciation? I asked the GM, Dean Giesey, if this would be a yearly tradition just before Opening Day. Dean replied, “Ha, ha, ha. I wish we could do it for the fans every year. I mean, have you tasted these pulled pork sandwiches? This has all been a near Disney-like experience, but it does take a lot of planning and cost a pretty penny to execute.”

Pretty penny indeed. This party ended up costing the Crystal Lake Sandgnats about a quarter of a million dollars. What did the owner get for his $250 grand? Fantastic food, bountiful beer, scintillating celebrities, an exciting seat expansion, marvelous music, and monumental memories forever ingrained in many, many Sandgnats fans. It all started at 10 AM and ran all of the way through midnight. “We had to talk to the mayor and several of the councilmen to get a late night grant of midnight for our party,” said Hewitson. Bill added, “I know it’s not routine to have an event take place in public until midnight, but this was a special day and we wanted everything to be just about perfect for our incredible fans!” I, being a local reporter, am a bit biased when it comes to this event, but trust me when I say, it was perfect!
If you were one of the lucky ones like me, you were immediately greeted by the general manager, the owner, and the entire coaching staff of the Sandgnats right after you walked through the Gnat Field doors. I asked Hewitson about his reasoning behind the attending coaches. The Sandgnats owner told me, “Well, I wanted this day to be truly awesome for all of our fans and, that being said, most of our fans want to learn as much about the game as they can. Well, what better way to do that than actually talk face to face with the coaches that make the decisions that deliver our fans victory after sweet victory?” The extensive coaching list was as follows: Manager - Wayne Kedsch, Bench Coach - Fernando Cruz, Hitting Coach - Enrique Sánchez, Pitching Coach - José García, Team Doctor - Cody Watts.

Even the scouts were there: José Luna, Ramón Gil, Dylan Dougherty, Arturo Torres, Ning-qing Mi, and Jerome Hansen were all on hand to answer questions, tell fans what they look for in a player, and live it up for a day. “Believe it or not, Ramón Gil has his own personal jet! He brags about that thing left and right, day and night. Well, wouldn’t you know it – when he needed it most, his ’little puppy’, as he calls it, failed him. That was a funny story about how he got here. Enrique Sánchez, our hitting coach who lives all of the way in South America (Venezuela, to be exact), actually picked Ramón up in Panama on the way into the States for our big event! They both had to return home for personal reasons prior to Saturday, but came through and showed up for our huge party. Enrique was really letting Ramón have it about his ’Panamanian puppy’! Oh well, we all have bad days like that,” added Mr. Hewitson.

Watching the fans eyes light up was quite a sight when they actually had the opportunity to compare notes with real live PEBA coaches! I asked José Luna, the Sandgnats head scout, if he grew tired of the same questions on Saturday. José responded, “Surprisingly, no. I was actually floored with how in depth the fans knowledge base for baseball was. They would bring up questions about players personalities and asking is that as important as their physical talents. Well, I thought the average fan only saw the numbers in the box score and that’s all they cared about. Boy, was I wrong.”

After the coaches section came the biggest surprise for me: the meet and greet with actual Sandgnats players. Five different players attended the expansion party, including CF Anthony Pace, CL Ángel Chacón, Golden Arm Award recipient, SP Bryan Stewart, and newcomers, 1B Manny López and AAA CL Carlos Rivera. Carlos looked as if he was the fan greeting professional baseball stars. Carlos was acquired last December from the Thoroughbreds of Kentucky for a first round draft pick. When asked why he seemed like a kid in a candy store, Rivera replied, "I’m 25 years old, now with a 102 win team and I’m at a party in our home stadium which is within 100 miles of Racine, WI, where I grew up! Could it get any better than this?”

Well, apparently, it could for one new Sandgnats first baseman. “Dude, I actually got proposed to today! She was 25 and smoking’ hot! I thought I’d make a few friends here today, but I never thought I’d get a date and a proposal out of it,” exclaimed Manny López.

Hewitson explained, “It was (Sandgnats GM) Dean’s idea to get all of these stars here today, so I cannot take credit for that. It was my idea, however, to get a kissing booth for Manny! (chuckling) Unfortunately, that idea was shot down immediately. It was pretty funny to see all of these young fans holding wads of cash in order to get an autograph from Bryan Stewart. Here, right before them, sits the Sovereign League Golden Arm winner and they’re getting his autograph on their baseball cards for free. That’s a beautiful thing! That was just one more little touch we thought would add to this whole once in a lifetime experience.”

I was loving it at that point, but then I stepped into the food court. Beers from everywhere, including frosty imports, local favorites from Milwaukee, and just about everything in between were served Saturday. Churros, Krispy Kremes, thick Chicago-style pizza, and tasty pulled pork sandwiches as far as the eye can see was running through my mind! After I gathered my magnificent meal and Samuel Adams, I sat down just outside the third base dugout and listened to high school bands tear it up.

Crystal Lake mayor Aaron Shepley let me know a little about putting together this great event. “Aren’t these kids great? They’re playing everything from ‘60s to Led Zeppelin to Fergie to Eminem, quite the variety today! I’m so glad all three high school bands could come together today and play like this. I’ll tell you a little secret, ok? There was a little drama with getting the bands here today. Crystal Lake Central has been here since 1924 but their music program isn’t that great, so we asked our northern high schoolers, Prairie Ridge, to take the reigns. Well, word got around and Crystal Lake South, whom have been around 19 years longer than Prairie Ridge combined with Central and put up a big stink at our new municipal building. It was such a shame to have such an ugly situation at such a beautiful building! We approached the Prairie Ridge music program due to their tremendous reputation and didn’t really even think about being fair to the other two schools. Well, then there was drama over which name was to be represented at our expansion party. We have the Prairie Ridge Wolves, the CL Central Tigers, and the CL South Gators and none of them wanted another name but their own. So, we declared the whole group the Sandgnats Band and the kids were ecstatic about that idea! All three bands are here today, playing together in harmony… well, mostly. (chuckling)

“I had to pull some strings to get some of our city’s finest here today. James Moore, our Fire/Rescue chief, is here to oversee any potentially dangerous fire situations, and Crystal Lake’s Chief of Police David Linder commissioned 18 of his 62 officers here today for this momentous event. Most of our fans are good natured people, but liquor has a way of making fans crazy sometimes. I can guarantee that David kept everything in order.”

Well, after the food and musical delights, I ordered myself to see all of the new seats. Gnat Field, after all, had taken on 5,000 new seats to increase its seating capacity to 40,000. As mentioned earlier this year, the Gnats followed through on their promise to add seating down both foul lines and in center field. The center field seats were a bit tricky to add because they could not impair the view of the batter. The great team at ParksAreUs, who originally built this stadium, came through in a big way. I cannot even begin to try to explain the highly technical 411 on how they operate, but the new seats in center field are actually invisible to the human eye from a distance. You do not know they are there until you look directly at them from less than 50 feet! It is quite a sight to behold when you are led into the stadium from the opposite end from center field and then slowly work your way toward those brand new, incredibly advanced seats.

After I picked up my jaw from the cement floor, my first thought was how on earth did the Sandgnats organization afford these space-age seats? It’s a small world and Hewitson is very thankful for that fact. “Yep, I happen to have a few connections with two of my family members holding lofty NASA positions,“ stated Bill. He added, “These seats are incredibly advanced here in center field. Of course, they are the first baseball stadium seats anywhere on the planet that are actually invisible from more than 50 feet and, on top of that, they have a cooling mechanism inside that keeps our fans comfortable on those scorching summer days. In addition, they have a bit of memory elastic cells in them (as they use in Tempur-Pedic® mattresses) to allow for unbelievable comfort. These seats were almost a freebie because of my NASA ties and the fact that this will be the world premiere showing of these types of seats. Once the baseball world gets wind of these incredible seats, my buddies at NASA are due to make some pretty big bank! So, it was a win-win situation for our space-age design friends and us here at the Sandgnats organization.”

Yes, the seats in center field stole the show, but I don’t want to neglect to mention the foul line seats. They actually take a little room away from the foul territory, but most of the design was oriented around spatial savings. The people at ParksAreUs used an incredibly thin but super-strong polycarbonate plastic and it works beautifully! Hewitson stated, “In order to add several thousand seats without dismantling a lot of the stadium, ParksAreUs had to come up with a clever idea, and I think they hit a home run here at Gnat Field!” This reporter agrees. They somehow accommodated the growing number of Sandgnats fans (up to 5,000) without ruining the classic yet modern look.

I believe Saturday, April 5, 2008 will be remembered forever in Crystal Lake. It gave the greatest baseball fans on the planet a brief look into the minds of their favorite team’s coaches, a chance to touch their favorite star’s hand, dine and hear their local kids’ musical talents, and of course witness the awe inspiring invisible seating in center field! It was one incredibly well-thought out day. As a Sandgnats fan myself, I, Phil McCracken, enjoyed every second of the 2008 Gnat Field Expansion Party!