TBF Escalates Protest, Wreaks Havoc on Cliff Hanger Attendance

Costs Estimated at $300K

July 11, 2022: Toyama – The Lupin Cliff Hangers have just completed a very controversial seven game home stand, losing three of four to Palm Springs, but sweeping three games from the ever-present Evas of Shin Seiki. The team, which has been averaging an attendance of nearly 43,000 people a game until this point, suffered the wrath of the Toyama Baseball Fanatics (TBF), their most loyal onedan (an organized fan club of the club that diligently plans out all activities around the Cliff Hanger schedule, diligently polices members [who pay dues and are issued identification cards that they must show to attend club functions and vote on club policies], and spends the entirety of Lupin games pounding drums and singing their sometimes off-color songs).

The TBF want Lupin GM to open his purse strings.

Upset at the team’s continuing discord between owner Paul Walker and General Manager Ron Collins, the TBF escalated things from their earlier protest, by calling for a boycott of the Bakersfield series. They circulated pre-game pamphlets, and took to social media in a blitz asking fans to stay away. The picketed the stadium gate prior to each game to dissuade walk-up sales. As a result, attendance dropped nearly 4,000 tickets a game during that series.

The TBF turned the spigot back on for Shin Seiki, and the team played to sell-out crowds of raucous standing room only fans (fans who were subsequently rewarded by being treated to both a walk-off grand slam win in the first game and a triple-play driven victory in the second).

The root of the TBF’s discontent is what they view as strange constraints that Walker is placing on team expenditures. He’s recently authorized spending over $10M on minor league free agents, but will not give GM Collins the $1M-$2M purse he needs to sign stalwart players like (team captain) Shiro Adachi to longer term extensions.

“We are happy that the team is spending money,” said TBF leader Okai “Sergeant” Tsumata. “And we are always happy to know the team is bringing in good young players. But if Collins is doing it because that’s the only way he is allowed to spend money, that’s embarrassing. This is baseball in Toyama. We don’t brook that kind of stupidity in our city.”

While Walker has remained silent on the TBF’s specific actions, he’s been on record as saying the fan group needed to understand that the club was a business, and that certain prudent financial decisions needed to be taken in order to keep the organization stable. The TBF action is estimated to have cost the team $300K-$400K in gate revenue, a fact that will not be lost on the ball club’s financial administrators.

“We understand this is a business,” Tsumata said. “But we told Paul Walker earlier that we are Toyama, and now that we’re on this global stage we don’t intend to let the club who plays here go slack on us. We are Toyama. We are not Lupin. We are not Cliff Hangers. We are Toyama, and the Lupin Cliff Hangers are our team because they play here. Mr. Walker really, really needs to hear this. This business is a two-way street. We follow Lupin because they are here, and they are here because we follow them.”

At present, the team stands at 43-46 despite an avalanche of injury problems that continued this week with the loss of #2 starter Shinobu Takeuchi. The club on the whole has endeared itself to the fans, and is still within easy shouting distance of a wildcard playoff spot if they can somehow muster a bit of magic in the second half of the season. It will be interesting to see if this strife between the fans and the club’s front office will have any impact on the field itself.