Mavericks’ revenues depend on a winning season
Mid-Missouri Mavericks manager Jim Gentile said he has gambled once in his life.
It was a successful endeavor, one he remembered fondly Monday.
Gentile beamed when he spoke of winning about $280 on the 2000 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
He vowed to never bet again.
But he spoke too soon.
That’s because the Mavericks’ 2005 Frontier League season, which begins tonight at Taylor Stadium, is a 96-game roll of the dice.
The team is gambling with its future and revenue this season after finishing 28-66 in 2004, 30 games behind the first-place Rockford RiverHawks in the West Division.
At the heart of it all is a guarantee Mavericks president and co-owner Gary Wendt made this offseason.
He told season ticket holders that they will be refunded half their money if the team doesn’t play .500 baseball or better in 2005.
In April, Wendt said that there was no better candidate to deliver on his promise than Gentile. The former major-league ballplayer is in his first full season with the club after taking over for Jack Clark 30 games into last season.
“I feel that that guarantee put a chain around my neck,” Gentile said, grinning. “I’m really going to have to win some ballgames.”
As Gentile spoke, the “Countdown to Opening Day” on the team’s Web site slowly shrunk to single digits.
It wasn’t the only sign of the team’s anticipation for its third year of Frontier League play.
Catcher Matt Oakes, one of eight returning players from last summer, held a bat with his blistered hands in the dugout as he addressed the coming season.
He had been finished with batting practice for a few minutes but looked more comfortable talking in his batting stance.
“Last year we had a lot of good people on our team, and we’ve got a lot of good people on our team this year,” Oakes said. “Probably the only difference this year is the team has become close-knit a little quicker.”
Frustration with player development seemed to escalate daily last year as the team tried to crawl out of a 4-26 hole. Moves were made almost daily.
Gentile and Wendt have pledged to be more patient this year.
The roster was trimmed to 23 players Monday, and the team plans to stick with that configuration.
“We know somebody’s going to go down with a bad arm or something like that,” Gentile said. “We’re hoping that we can get through a year with a minimal five or six changes.
“When you start from there, right from the beginning, you have an idea of what each guy can do.”
The River City Rascals await Mid-Missouri at 7:05 tonight as the Mavericks begins a six-game homestand. The Rascals recently made news by auctioning off an at-bat and half-inning in the field for an exhibition game last Friday.
Mark Skorlich, a 41-year-old internet entrepreneur, won the auction with a bid of $9,050. He had one more at-bat than he expected, going 0-2 with two strikeouts.
The Mavericks hope that their own promotions can help bring more fans to the ballpark. The team averaged 1,011 fans per game last year, the second-lowest figure in the league.
“We’ve had two bad years,” Gentile said. “But give us a chance and maybe we’ll have a good year.”