by the Yuma Committee to Save the Bulldozers

March 12, 2012: Yuma, AZ – In just four short years, attendance at John Deere Stadium has declined from a high average in 2007 of more than 31,000 fans per game to last year’s embarrassing 10,300.

What happened?  The Bulldozers have won fewer games every year since their inception in 2007, until last year they set a PEBA record of only 23 wins.  Attendance, to no one’s surprise, has been inversely proportional to team wins.

What can be done about it?  Obviously, when the Bulldozers begin to win a bit more regularly, their attendance will improve.  But that, according to Dozers new GM Bob “Swanfeld” Mayberry, is not going to happen this year.  Yuma has traded away its best young player (Wunderkind winner Carlos Guerera) and its top two young prospects (Pepe Espinosa and Curt Turner) in an effort to fill the minor leagues with many talented young players, not just two.  Swanfeld is planning five years ahead, but he is the first to admit this is a huge gamble.

“No one can know what’s gonna happen.  Not this year, not the next.  Young players and top prospects?  They come and go.  Some make it, some don’t.  So swapping the immediate future for long-term prospects is a gamble.  A real roll of the cosmic dice.  But, heh, baseball’s a game.  Chance plays a big role.  We’re just pushing that role to the limit.  If we roll seven or eleven, we’ll be dancing in the streets in five or six years.  If we crap out, you’ll have to dig our bodies out of the desert.”

So what’s he going to do?  What plans are the Dozers bullish on?  For the coming 2012 season, plans to increase fan interest include the following:

1. The Bulldozer GM will be petitioning the PEBA Commissioner for permission to shift some of the afternoon games in Yuma to evenings, especially as temperatures rise late in the summer.  Cool evening games, the GM hopes, will draw more fans during the dog days of summer.
2. Opening Day in Yuma, April 13, will be Bulldozer Day.  Prior to the game, outside the ballpark, the ballclub’s recent past will be symbolically buried by a dozen bulldozers – donated by local heavy machinery specialists Lee-Allen Builders – as they plow last year’s memories into the dirt.

3. Ticket prices have been lowered to $15, the third lowest in the PEBA.

4. All seating is unreserved on a first-come basis, which the Yuma brass hopes will mean a lot of young kids will be sitting behind home plate.

5. April 23, the opening game of the home stand against Canton Longshoremen, has been designated as William Shakespeare Day.  Anyone able to recite one of the Bard’s sonnets will be admitted for half price.  English teachers will be admitted for free and honored prior to the game.  Willie the Shake seemed to have Yuma’s pitching problems in mind when he wrote, “They that… pitch will be defiled.”

6. On May 14, the Bulldozers open a home stand against Reno.  Monday the 14^th has been designated as David Goode Day.  In an effort to endear the $12 Million Man with Yuma fans, the Dozers’ slugger will be honored for his contributions to the team and showered with gifts.

7. On May 15, the Reno Tenpinners will be honored as the second-worst team in the PEBA during 2011.  Fans will vote before the game for their favorite Tenpinner, who will be identified during the 7^th inning stretch and honored with a lifetime free pass to Inca Lanes, the Yuma bowling alley.

8. August 19 has been designated Bill Veeck Day.  To honor one of the former MLB’s most influential general managers, anyone wearing a brightly colored sport shirt will be admitted for half price.  In addition, the Bulldozers will sign to a special one-day contract a midget, who will appear sometime during the game as a pinch hitter.

9. Tuesday and Wednesday home games are Senior Citizen Nights.  Senior tickets are half price and night games will start an hour earlier (assuming the Commish approves) to accommodate the elderly.  Public transportation to and from the ballpark will be provided free of charge for anyone 60 or older by YCAT, Yuma County Area Transit.

10. During the hot summer days of June, July and August, Saturday nights will be designated Midnight Madness and games will be delayed, with the Commish’s permission, until 9:15.  At the usual starting time of 7 pm, the diamond and outfield will be open to fans of all ages who want to run the bases or shag flies with the pitchers for an hour.  At 8 pm, the grounds crew will prepare the field for the evening’s game.  Fans will be treated to free sodas from a local distributor of Pepsi products, and half-price hot dogs from the local branch of Burgers and Beer.  If the game lasts until midnight, the last sixty seconds will be counted down aloud by the fans, and ballplayers will be encouraged to slow down to reach the magic hour.  If the game is still going at midnight, a fireworks display will interrupt the action and punctuate what Yuma’s management hopes will become the most exciting date night destination in the Sonoran Desert region.

11. Throughout the season, a running tally will be kept of Bulldozer losses and compared with the record-setting pace of 2011.  The 2012 record will be posted before and after each game, and fans will be reminded of what the Dozers’ record was on that day one year before.  Should the luckless Dozers match or, heaven forbid, set a new record for losses, everyone in attendance on the record-tying night will win free tickets for Opening and Closing Day in 2013.

12. On September 1, when major league rosters expand with the addition of promising minor league players, the Yuma franchise will celebrate Minor League Day.  Awards will be made to the top minor leaguers at each level, many of whom will see action in the game that night.  Fans will be provided with baseball cards of the most promising minor leaguers and free tickets to one game in April of the following year, when they can find out how their favorite minor leaguers have fared and which have joined the major league roster.

13. Finally, the coup de grace, the piéce de résistance, will be PEBA Day, Sunday the 16^th of September, when the Yuma club will honor the preeminent professional baseball league in America (since the sudden demise of MLB) by inviting the PEBA’s Commissioner to toss out the first pitch.  Hundreds of free tickets to Bulldozer games in 2013 will be given away, and fans will have a chance to “Rate the GM” by cell phone poll during the first three innings.  Results will be announced during the 7^th inning stretch, when the Commish will be invited to offer his evaluation of the new regime in Yuma and advice for the coming year.