Published: June 28, 2009 10:42 pm      

BASEPATHS: Muckdogs attendance is lowest in league

COMMENTARY

On Opening Night in Batavia, the undefeated, New York-Pennsylvania League defending champion Muckdogs drew 1,356 fans.

That’s approximately nine percent of Batavia’s population.

A similar slice of Niagara Falls’ populace would have some 4,500 Power fans sitting on each other’s shoulders in Sal Maglie Stadium.

And yet it next-to-last in the league, just above Oneonta (1,242).

This demonstrates the difficulty of maintaining minor-league baseball in the small towns that gave it its start. Even the independent leagues are turning their backs on their roots. Chillicothe, birthplace of the Frontier League in Ohio, has moved on.

Will Batavia be next? The International League Rochester Red Wings rescued the ‘dogs shortly before the 2008 season, easing some of the six-figure debt accumulated by the club under community operation.

But during the 2008-2009 off-season, credible sources reported more losses for the Muckdogs. One deficit number would carry the Power for a decade.

Mrs. Paths took Base to Batavia for Father’s Day. Attendance was reported at 905 (proportionately, about 3,000 in Niagara Falls). It looked like less. He's seen similar gatherings announced at 300 in Sal Maglie, where the 11th Commandment is “Thou shalt not inflate attendance.”

In the cause of efficiency, Rochester has benched a lot of the touches that made Batavia special. The hot dogs are pre-packaged. Base Paths treated himself to a premium beer and paid $6, more than the best seat in Dwyer Stadium. The scoreboard operator left, weary of criticism about capital letters from “bosses” barely out of high school. Gone, too, is the genial and raffish beer-tent tapster who seemed like a castoff from “cheers.”

The sloppy old mascot Slider has been replaced with a spiffy brown mutt called Homer; we like the look but Homer doesn’t howl back. There are some nifty new promotions, including one sponsored by a restaurant in which contestants fire rubber pork chops into grills. Neat. The Boosters still run their 50-50 (first prize last Sunday, $127), parking is still free and the indestructible Wayne Fuller still prevails on the P.A., the finest and most experienced voice in Western New York.

Under Rochester’s wing, the Batavia experience suffers only in comparison to its own past. There are fireworks July 3, 4 and 12. Brooklyn, the Mets’ farmclub, comes to visit Aug. 4-6, followed by the Staten Island Yankees Aug. 14-16. From the I-290’s Delaware interchange, for example, it’s well under an hour; exit at Batavia and run the bases, turning left at each of three consecutive lights.

Go Muckdogs, in a way, and in another, stick around.

Signal back to Base Paths via pollyndoug@hotmail.com