Anyone who thinks the success of the Worcester Tornadoes rests entirely on the team’s performance on the field in Can-Am League games, or on attendance for home starts at Hanover Insurance Park, is sadly mistaken.
Driven by the vision of CEO Todd Breighner, Executive VP/GM Jorg Bassiacos and irrepressible VP/Director of Sales Dave “Peterman” Peterson (who is, along with mascot Twister and Manager Rich Gedman, the face of the franchise), the Tornadoes are about much more than wins and losses and turnstile count; which is not to diminish the importance of those ingredients.
Baseball camps at which kids 5-12 learn the fundamentals of hitting, pitching and fielding from Tornadoes players, racing Twister around the bases, seats that are close to the action and watching first baseman Nick Salotti slam a double (against Sussex) are all part of the experience of following the Worcester Tornadoes. (Photos courtesy of the Worcester Tornadoes)
During a conversation in the organization’s offices on Main Street on July 21, Breighner, Bassiacos and “Peterman” spelled out the many reasons why Worcester is fortunate to have a minor-league baseball team. This starts of course with the opportunity to observe such budding talent as Outfielder Danny Santiesteban and Catcher Craig Maddox, possibly on their way “up the ladder” to “The Show.” But it has just as much to do with a great view of the action from any seat in the Tornadoes’ cozy ballpark, enormous entertainment value for the dollar, great concessions and the countless ways in which the team gives back to the community. And that “community” includes not just the city of Worcester but an entire region, covering a radius of about thirty miles in every direction.
Typical of the Worcester Tornadoes’ continuing efforts to reach out and touch established and prospective supporters is a first-ever softball camp for girls age eight to sixteen that Breighner, Bassiacos and Peterson say will be “really cool.” The camp is scheduled for August 9-14 at Holy Cross. It will offer up to about one hundred kids the opportunity to “learn from Olympians.” The Tornadoes have worked with the local softball community to put together the instructional-heavy camp, which will be capped by a Friday-Saturday clinic, a meet-and-greet and some actual competition.
With the introduction of the softball camp, the Worcester Tornadoes are connecting in still another way with their public. Camps and clinics they run are “wildly popular.” But the Tornadoes are “out there” in lots of other ways. They walk every Little League and softball parade in and around the city during the month of May. They talk to children about the importance of reading and sportsmanship. They make hospital visits. They work with various corporate interests including of course Hanover Insurance: a staunch ally. They host special nights, like the recent “Irish Night” on July 30—and a “Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours Night” that is expected to draw several hundred persons on August 26. They provide fireworks at every Friday-night home game.
At the same time they are trying to grow their season ticket base, a difficult but not unachievable goal.
“Minor league baseball is a tough business,” Breighner said. “You feel like you’re bipolar, at times. Friday night there can be a full house. Mondays you can yell at the guy sitting in Section F and ask him if he wants a hot dog. Just from the promotional end it’s a pretty heavy lift. We go after the low-hanging fruit first. At the start of the season we were aiming for eleven sellouts. We’re at six.”
Breighner and the Worcester Tornadoes aren’t complaining. Instead, they are working hard, and looking ahead. Next year—2011—they have dubbed “Operation Southwest Airlines,” Breighner said, with a push to encourage fans to “buy early.”
As for the remainder of 2010, “August is shaping up to be a decent month,” Peterman said. “We have fifteen home games, including ten on weekends.”
Ellen Ryder, director of public affairs at Holy Cross, says, of the school’s involvement with the Worcester Tornadoes, “we’re thrilled and proud to be a part of it, as part of our working with the city of Worcester and enhancing our relations with the city and the neighborhood. A lot of people on campus feel involved in it from our grounds crew to the athletics staff to our public-safety officers. Fred Eppinger, from Hanover, is an alum, so the partnership between the Tornadoes, Holy Cross and the city—there’s real synergy there.”
Ryder said Holy Cross is working in tandem with the Worcester Tornadoes’ new management and the city to make Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field “a terrific summer destination for fans and families.”
With solid attachments to all of the eleven youth leagues in the city, firm backing from Holy Cross, Hanover Insurance and the city (all of which have “stepped up,” Breighner said) and a five-year plan in place, the Tornadoes are optimistic about their future.
Any manner of reaching first base and eventually home plate—as an enterprise—they will take. As the old baseball saying goes, “a walk is as good as a hit.”
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