Bristol Blues - Jordan Scheiner

(upbeat music) All right, good evening, everyone. This is Mark, and you're listening to the Ballpark Hunter Podcast, the Regional Correspondent in the Midwest for the website Stadium Journey, the industry's leader in sports travel. If you got a place to go this year, check out stadiumjourney.com and know everything about that stadium. We give you information on food, tickets, the neighborhood, plus great pictures. So stadiumjourney.com, know before you go. Well, my guest tonight is Jordan Scheiner. He is the GM of the Bristol Blues out of Connecticut, and they're part of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, and they're about to start their season in 2025. So Jordan, thanks for coming on right before the season begins. - Yeah, thank you for having me, Mark. This is great. - All right, so yeah, so sometimes I just sent out emails randomly to people, and 20 of them go out to come back, and the last two have been any CBL people. So I definitely, definitely beginning to know a little bit more about the league. And I have been up to Muzzy Field. It was 15 years ago. It's kind of hard to imagine. It's been that long, but Muzzy Field is this old quaint little ballpark. A little funky has a lot of history. And you guys have made yourself quite the home there in the last 10 years, hasn't been correct. - Yeah, this is gonna be our, technically we've been in town for, this is gonna be our 11th year, but this is our 10th season of baseball because of COVID. So, that's exciting. That silly COVID definitely was a challenge to it. - You guys made it through, 'cause that was your league shut down. You didn't play at all, correct? - Yeah, I think there were only a couple leagues in the country that played. I think the futures league might have played a little bit. There was a small league in Newport that played it, like two different stadiums, but for the most part, everybody shut down. So, it was the right call. - Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, yeah, Michigan, I think that year, you had Lansing, had the Lemonade League with the lug nuts, and then Traverse City had a league. They had three teams play up there, and they had 500 fans per game. And I actually was able to see two of those games that year. And I look back at just, it's like, wow, that happened. - That actually happened to you. - And we went through it, crazy. - We went through, we survived, and we're at Watcha Baseball game. It made me appreciate all the ball parks, including a place like Muzzy Field, because there are so many collegiate leagues out there. There's so many ball parks. Some of them have a great history. Some of them are kind of fields, but what's it like to come to your game, atmosphere-wise? - I mean, when you think about what it's like to be at a Bristol Blues game, we try to recreate the experience that you'd get in the '50s or the '60s or even earlier. So we just try to keep baseball super authentic in Bristol. I mean, even if you look at our logo, it's got hints of Brooklyn Dodgers in it, and current LA Dodgers. So we just like keeping baseball authentic, whether it's the food that we serve, whether it's the outfield wall signage that we have, which is all hand-painted, which is what you would have seen in the '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s. So, and that's something that's gonna be a staple, just like long past I'm gone, we are going to maintain that brand of just keeping baseball old school. - And okay, and was that the thought when the team first came into town, or was that something that sort of materialized? - Yeah, no, that was a thought in 2015 when it started, was we have an old school owner, and he grew up watching Brooklyn Dodgers games, and wanted to recreate old school baseball at Muzzy, because that's what you have there. You don't have a big electronic jumbo-tron sign. It's all old school from the seats that you sit in to just the whole environment. It's, you feel like you're in a little bit of a time warp. So. - And I do the players still pass the hat around after homeruns? - They don't pass that. We've gotten rid of that, like, they're happy about that. But, yeah. - Or 50/50 tickets. I, when I was there, I saw the eyes with 50/50 tickets. I thought that was just-- - Still do that. - Okay. - We still do that. Yeah, that's a good little just a side hustle for us to get some extra cash, and hopefully give a couple hundred bucks to a fan in the crowd. - Yeah, yeah, no, I tell you, my buddy, he loves 50/50 whenever we go to a ballpark, and sometimes he wins, and I'm like, oh, should I should have jumped in? Yeah, he finds a way to look at. And, you know, that's the way going to baseball games is this time, like, seems like even minor league games are going up in price with tickets. How much is it to get into a blues game? - So, we understand the demographic that we have in Bristol. I mean, it's, we're across the board. We're mainly in middle-class town, but we have just some lower-class fans, and then we have our upper-class fans too, but we try to price things super appropriately compared to what's around us. So, it's $6 to get into the park. I think that's stayed the same. We might have gone up $1 a few years ago, but prior to that, we were at $5. So, $6 to get in, it's $3 for a hot dog, $4 for a cheeseburger, $5 for a beer. We keep it simple. We just try to cover our costs, and try to provide just a really good experience to our fans and make it easy for them to come out and want to spend $50 instead of going to Yigis Stadium, or even some minor league parks where you're not getting out for under $150 at that point. So, we want to keep it easy for them to take the family out and keep it inexpensive. - Yeah, 'cause you're right, 'cause I know, especially if you have kids, and I've talked to Azak Bees, and who's a fan of the show, I had him on a few times, and he says when he travels with his three kids, he loves when it's dollar hot dog night, or hot core night, 'cause he could feed his kids very cheaply, and it seems like that's the case every night. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're gonna be adding a dollar hot dog night this year. We used to do it every Sunday four or five years ago, but we went away from that a little bit, but yeah, no, we want to keep it affordable for people. It fits our brand, and I think if we raised prices to what some other teams had in the league, or even what minor league baseball offers, it's just we're gonna see a drop in attendance definitely. - And how is attendance? Obviously, you see the prices, does that reflect with more people coming out? - Yeah, definitely. Attendance has been slowly rising since, I took over in 2022. That was my first season as GM, and each season we're getting better attendance each year. I would say, on average, the grandstands at Muzee hold about 1100. Might be 1,000 now, 'cause they took away a little bit of seating. But we're averaging, I would say, on a weekday night, seven to 800 on a weekend night, we're doing over 1,000, because we have our, we have standing room, and then we have bleachers seating as well on first base side. So on some good nights, we're getting up to 1,500 or 2,000 on good weekend nights. So, and what's nice about Muzee is that because it's a covered stadium, you could have 400 people in there, and it sounds like there's 2,000, because it just gets so loud and creates just a really cool, like buzzing environment, which at an open-air facility, you just don't have that. That's, we're lucky because we have a smaller, we have less seating than some other stadiums, where you have some stadiums that will have 4,000 seats, and even if they have 1,000 people, it still looks half empty, which is a bummer. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, no, no, no, you're right. You're all like, 'cause Muzee Field was tailor-made for the summer collegial leagues, you know, unfortunately some of these are really large because, you know, Major League Baseball got rid of some minor league teams, and you happen to be playing in New England, so it's like, hey, we got a stadium, let's join. Exactly. The NECBL, and that's awesome, but it's almost like we need to get like a chainsaw there and chop it in half. Yeah, you're right. I think teams would be more successful and create a better fan experience if they were able to downsize their stadium, but that's never gonna, you can never do that. No, no, it's, it's, once they built it, it was there, you know, you built it for AA Baseball and 30 years ago for the Yankees affiliate now, now it's there, but, you know, that's something we see a lot of, and, you know, something I like to see is maybe some, summer collegial teams build, like maybe a brand new stadium, tailor-made with 1,500 seats. Yeah, yeah, and you're seeing, I will say, like even some college teams now are getting creative with the stadiums they build that will have 1,000 seats like that. Like, I like the Holy Cross stadium that the Worcester Braveheart's use. Like, you can get a couple of thousand people in there. It's not too big. You have all the amenities that you need. It's a nice stadium. What you don't want is a huge, like, there's, there's some stadiums in Connecticut that have 5,000, 6,000 seats, and I don't know what you do when you have 500 people there. It's tough. Yeah, no, you're right. You want that atmosphere there. So if you hear people screaming and yelling and you're going to get into it, so. Yeah. No, like I said, I had a blast when I went to Musdie Field, and, you know, I don't get out to that part of the country that much anymore, so. I heard some things have changed there, especially about five years ago, about 10 years ago. Well, over something that, fanchant renovations that took place. Yeah. So in 2016, they originally the press box was, it was in a strange spot. It was along the first or is along the third baseline. It was elevated. Yep. So it was difficult for the broadcaster and difficult for our video team to actually properly stream everything, properly broadcast, um, strange spot for it. But like everything was up there. Any year, that was just your typical press box. We had nothing behind home plate. So in 2016, they built a brand new press box, climate controlled right behind home plate. They had to raise the roof to do that. And then they added along the first baseline, they had bleachers. They replaced the bleachers there and then added a covering on top as well. So those were two huge projects that definitely helped the fan experience. Okay. So yeah, because I remember that giant, I think there was like two set of stairs I went up to the press box. It's still there too. They haven't done like no one goes and you don't really need to. We have no use of it. We have a perfectly good press box with 15 seats in it and air condition. So you could even use that for like, you know, maybe renovate it to like some kind of weird VIP party deck. We've discussed that the only issue is getting up and down those stairs is, is uh, laboring definitely. Okay. And we'd really have to make it safety. Like we'd have to put some serious netting around because right now you have a, if you go up to the top of the press box that you can see the whole stadium, you see half the city, which is a cool view. Yeah. But the railing only goes about up to your waist. So it's easy for a person to fall off it. So you'd have to, you know, put better flooring there, better, uh, just safety precautions. So it feels like it might be easier just to knock it down. Honestly, they're, yes, there's, uh, it doesn't get used much. They still play one football game at Muzea a year. And I think they put people up there during the football game, but other than that, it's, yeah, it's just there. Oh, yeah, because yeah, I felt like you look at some of these older stadiums and I think the brick, the, the foundation was put down in 1939. You always had like the football press box. So, yes, I felt like what it was. That's what it was. And I don't know if that was used for baseball as well at that time or if there was another press box at behind home plate, but, you know, what they might have done was had like a table or some small set up behind home plate. That would make most sense for baseball. Um, but they did. They used to play a lot of football and soccer at Muzea field. So prior to the blues coming in, it was, it was used every season. And I guess it was used in the fall and the spring for a lot of games. Okay. Well, I did not know that you had the new press box. Yeah. Stadium journey. We have a guy out there in Massachusetts. So he heads out there every now and then. I'm not quite sure how old our review is, but you should, you should consider coming out and doing another updated review. Yeah. A lot has changed. Yeah. I tell you. The surface has changed too. Uh, completely replaced the sod in 2021. Replace the speaker system. So the whole field surface got gutted. I will say I will go on record saying that it is the best playing surface in the NEC BL. Okay. By far, um, we have an awesome parks department that that maintains the field. I think we have three guys a day that's that are doing all that field work and that are super skilled and knowledgeable. Um, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a minor league level facility, definitely from a, from like the playing surface wise. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's key. The plane, plane surface area is probably the first thing you want to have top notch before, before the fan, but these kids definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, could you, you don't want them going back that way? Yeah, cause you don't want their college coaches saying, hey, that feels suck. I ain't going back there. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. And then they start talking stuff. But, um, yeah. So how, how are things right now with, uh, we're so close to the season. Probably when this airs will be the first week. Uh, what are some of the final things you're, you're dotting on the eyes. Yeah. So, um, our intern group came in last week. We're just starting to get all of our, we have a big group. We have probably 25 to 30 interns that work for us and then another 20 to 30 volunteers. So, um, we have one of the bigger operations in the NEC BL, but we need to just because of the experience that we offered to fans. Um, so at this time, we're kind of getting all of our staff acclimated going over, starting to go over the first two weeks of the season of, of how to make it fun for people, um, going through all the logistical items, like your concession stuff and making sure all the, all the things are checked off, but for the most part, we're, we're in good shape. And then how many interns do you have for the year? Um, so a breakdown is we have about 15 game day apps. We have five data, data analytics. We have 500 broadcast team of two social media, two marketing, uh, two co-assisted GMs and then we'll have, uh, two like play by play broadcasters as well. So, and these are all interns. These are all college interns. Yep. So, yeah. And, yeah, I'm just, I'm looking, so wow, even the co-GMs are interns. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. All right. And then are these all from the New England area? Do you see some kids coming in from out of state from? We'll get, um, we, the only thing is is we don't offer housing for interns. So, uh, occasionally we'll have people that know people in the area. They can, they have a family member or a friend they can stay with. Um, I would say we have five or six out of towners this year and actually ended up getting a renting house together and finding it just one of our sponsors, uh, or one of our local partners, um, owns a house and, and is a real estate guy. So, he was able to hook him up with a place to live, which is great. So, yeah. I remember those days being up in Portland, Maine, trying to find a place to live. Or going down to Knoxville, Tennessee. Oof. The thing is, is that it's like if teams can offer, if teams can offer, um, interns beds, what kid wouldn't want to go to the birchers for a summer or, um, you know, Boston or up in Maine or Vermont and, and spend the summer in New England and, and get free housing essentially and just kind of work on your craft. It's a pretty cool experience. Yeah. Luckily, we're in Connecticut. So, we're more open. We, we have more people around so we can pull interns, but some, some, some teams do really well with pulling in out of state interns. No, it does benefit because I, I'm a high school teacher during the day and I, you know, I talk to kids who want to get into sports management or work or do play by play. I mean, you gave me a list of so many different things you can do for a team. And I tell them, I go, Hey, you live in Indianapolis. I mean, reach out to some of the pro teams here, you know, right now in high school, where you can drive there. You don't have to worry about packing your car up and moving out there or worrying about where you're going to live. See what they can offer and start working on your craft now at age 15, 16. Oh, yeah. So experience helps. Definitely. That's what I'm experiencing helps. You know, I didn't take advantage of what I could when I was younger and, uh, you know, I look back. I would have done things a little bit differently. Not that I'm complaining about my life now, but of course. Yeah. I would have done, but like, you know, I'm looking at like social media manager. So are these kids that come into the, do they just work from home and all they do is just go on the computer and post things on. Yeah. So our social media are marketing and our co-existence in GM's will start in February. So we're starting in February. We're working remotely for probably two and a half months. And then the middle of May we get together and we start hanging out at Muzzy Field a little bit more and then they're at every game. So our social media team will be at the ballpark at least four days a week, five days a week as long as we have a home game. They're at probably one PM getting ready for the game, creating content, editing content. And, uh, and then they wake up and do it the next day too. But most of it's most of it's definitely at the ballpark that day. Okay. Are they trying to do anything creative or are they just updating scores, information, game day promotions? Definitely more on the creative side. So we have, we have a couple that might be doing just like off the cuff style content. So talking with players, recording like a TikTok style video or announcing a sponsor, thanking someone for something. And then we also have two videographers that will come in and wants a high school kid, one's a college kid, but they worked with us last year, really skilled. And those are the kids that's getting, they're going to provide us with the good content that you'll get during the game. So like kid gets a base hit up the middle, you get a nice tight shot of him. They'll be able to flip that footage around and send it to our social media team at the game within five minutes. And then that goes up. So definitely a mix. We have a lot of different stuff on our social media just from like general communication with the fans to keeping them updated about players and different announcements. Yeah. Of course, rain delays, post-pomance. Oh, yeah. Yep. Definitely that helps out when you're traveling to different ball parks. You talked about just basic food there. Like you want the 1950s. So I'm looking at hot dogs popcorn. Like do you have any like creative food that try to? So we, we like, we like the basics. Hotdog burger hot dogs burgers nachos ice cream. We're adding like a kind of a homemade lemonade this year. We have pretzel bites. We had it those a couple years ago. That was a big seller. And this year we'll be adding a foot long hot dog with like a sped. It'll be like them. the Mojo dog, I think is what we're gonna call it. And it'll be like foot long hot dog, some chili, some onions, and some nacho cheese. So we don't go crazy on the food. Unfortunately, our concession space, although we have two concession stands, we're limited on what's actually, what we can put in them just because they're so tight and tiny. So we'll only have 10 to 15 menu items, but we do sell beer, and that's important, because not a lot of teams in the NECB will do. And that's just, it adds to the experience that we can provide to fans, 'cause who doesn't wanna enjoy a cheap hot dog and a cheap cold beer and watch baseball? - No, I'm with you there, if you know, I was at a world's game about a month ago, well over a month ago now, and they had Bud Miller light for five bucks. So, yeah, that's ours. - I'll take it. I wouldn't-- - Cheaper than a bar. - That's cheaper than, well, yeah, cheaper than a bar these days. I mean, I like craft beer, but man, I'm paying almost $8, $9 with tip and tax. It's, yeah. I don't know if I'm getting old or that's just kinda how reality is now. - I just don't think we're used to it. That's what it is. - Yeah. - Yeah, it's like, I know craft beer, I mean, go back almost 25 years ago. Remember, three bucks for a craft beer, and we thought that was a little bit high, but I said, "Eh, it's just a dollar more. This is good beer." And now that's tripled in price. - Yeah. - Yeah. But you guys got craft beer at a Muzzy York? - Yeah, so one of the things we actually added last year was our Blues Brew. It's called a line drive logger. So custom designed to be here with one of our local brewers, and it's an Italian style logger. And the name of the brewery we work with is Brass Works Brewing at a Waterberry Connecticut. And so they basically brewed, they created a beer for us, and that's like our signature beer. It's just a super crispy, nice little summer beer. It tastes kind of similar to a peroni. And then this year we're gonna be adding a celtzer as well, but a celtzer from a craft brewing, a craft brewery in town, New Cambridge project. They have a celtzer that we're gonna be adding in black cherry celtzer. So we used to have Vizzy, which is just like one of your typical, you know, national ones that they offer, but now hopefully we're gonna get a little bit more popular with going local. So. - Yeah, definitely celtzers. And that's something I like celtzers. I don't hate 'em. I just would rather have a beer at the game, but I see more and more people, especially younger folks. In their thirties, drinking the celtzers, it's like they're just not drinking beer anymore. So, and it's drinking. - Yep, it's drinking. - And it's drinking notice to that. You know, it reminds me when I was in my twenties, I would drink the craft beer and all my friends and older people were drinking bud, bud, like, chorus light. - Yeah. - They're like, "Well, why are you drinking that?" All of a sudden, I'd be drinking craft beer now. Celtzer, so 25 years, who knows? Maybe drink whatever. - Yeah, exactly. Red wine at the game. - Drinking red, we have, be drinking, you know, bourbon, just drink, straight moonshine. So. (laughing) Funny stuff. But yeah, that's exciting. When you see like a small team like you, like you're just being able to get like their own beer. So, I just feel like a lot of teams have that. Do you have to reach out to the brewery or do breweries contact you for ideas? - So, in this experience, the brewery out of Waterbury actually reached out to us. They, two of the three owners of the brewery lived close to Muzzy, they grew up playing baseball at Muzzy, so they know the area. And they proposed the idea to us. We loved it. We worked on a canned design for about two and a half months together, found a really cool design, and we're able to make it happen. And then with this, with this Celtzer, they reached out to us to just interest in, in wanting to put their drink in Muzzy Field, which I totally get. So, and luckily they have a great product. So, we're excited to see how it sells. - Yeah, that's, yeah, obviously when fans come and, you know, do you ever get like fans feedback from things like this? - Yeah, I mean, so we put out a fan feedback form every year, and luckily, I mean, there's always gonna be people that are just want more and more and more, but one of the things that we did get was people said, add lemonade. And so this year we're gonna be adding lemonade, which is exciting. That's something from the fan feedback that was definitely helpful. Why not have ice cold lemonade that is homemade at an old school baseball stadium? - Yeah, something you might overlook unless you have your fans tell you. - Exactly. - Yeah. - And I appreciate that feedback. - Yeah, it's nice to hear that. I know I try to, my, my web, my social media pages, I try to tell people what he like to see with my video content. Nobody tells me anything. So, every now and then, every now and then. But, you know, it's with the podcast. Sometimes people say, "Hey, can you reach out to this team? "Can you reach out to that team?" And sometimes I find myself reaching out to a team I never heard of. And we have a really great conversation. So, you know, it's nice. It's nice when people come on here and talk 'cause not everybody knows who the Bristol Blues are. They may not even live anywhere close to New England and hear they're getting a little kind of taste of what it's like. So, what is, yeah. And that's what I hope to provide here. And, you know, I want you to tell me about Bristol Connecticut and the surrounding area. So, if I were to come out to see a game, what would I do before, maybe after, long weekend? - Yeah, so, I mean, outside of the Bristol Blues and Musdie Field and Bristol, Bristol is the home of ESPN. - Yep. - So, you do have, I'm not sure how much they occupy over that main campus, but they still do a lot of ESPN activities about 10 minutes away from the ballpark. You have a fun theme park called Lane Compounds. That's something that people coming in out of town. You can hit during the day, really cool water park, just like, it's not like six flags, it's a little bit smaller, but you get a much better experience. And then, Bristol's, I would say, kind of, it's definitely a bigger city. So, decent sized population, a lot of good restaurants to choose from, and then surrounding area-wise, you're 25, 30 minutes from West Hartford, which also has a lot to offer from a nightlife perspective, good restaurants, good bars, and then you're only another 15 minutes away if you wanna do a day game night game, you could go catch a yard goats game down the road. We're only 35 minutes from Hartford. - Yeah, yard goats. I was, yeah, I think I did a few trips up there, saw the yard goats and Nashua and Bristol, and, yeah, well, Bristol, I just did that one night. If I had to do a back, I would probably spend a couple nights up there and try to hit some more ballpark. So, it fits along that route up there in that part of town. So, nice, nice. So, as we wrap up our conversation, a little bit about you, Jordan, how did you find yourself to Bristol? You said you work in Evansville for one year. - Yeah, so I jumped around a little bit of independent baseball for a little while. I played in Lancaster for the barnstormers. I played up in, shoot, where was it? Old Orchard Beach, Maine. There was, I think it was the Empire League at the time. So, actually, this was 2015. I lived, it was early 2015, right before I joined the team, and I was living in the training room. Like, that was my, that's where I slept because there just wasn't enough host family. So, I had a really short commute to the ballpark, which was great. That was, that was easy. That was probably honestly like outside of Blue Stuff, that was my most favorite baseball summer, just because I was living at the ballpark. I was like a mile away from the beach. So, I just jumped on my bike and kind of wrote it down to the beach and hung out until I had to report for the day, at like two o'clock when I had to start getting ready for the game, but cool ballpark, uncomfortable seats, very uncomfortable seats, but it was a really cool old school ballpark. Have you been there? - No, that was an infamous ballpark. That was closed for many years. - Yes. - It just was left. It was an old triple-a ballpark for the first. And I think it was, I think the team moved after the 1987, 88 season, and I don't think they used it. And then I think the Empire League came in and they renovated it. I was shocked that that stadium was able to come back alive. That was, that was huge. And I heard that the bugs there kind of bother you during the summer. - Oh, they're brutal. Oh my God. And that was such a cool, like, we didn't get many fans, unfortunately, but you're in a beach town. I'm surprised that we weren't able to pull a bigger fan base just because you have, that is a huge spot for people from Quebec to come down and spend their summer. The beaches were packed in the middle of the summer. The fans didn't, like, they didn't come out and watch baseball, but that's all right. - So you get a lot of people from Quebec came down there to the waters. Yeah, yeah. You know, they always said beach towns don't do well for baseball, but I mean, Mertel Beach does well and Charleston does well. And Newport does well in our league. And then Martha, - And it does pretty well too. Yeah. - I could, it's just, you know, I don't know. You said the seats were uncomfortable and you had the bugs out there, but, you know, you would have, how many people would come out to it? game about couple hundred or less. Yeah, max, max. And that was like a Friday night. Yeah, we might have just been in a bad spot. Who knows? Yeah, that empire league is a little infamous as well. So it's yeah, was that was water town in the league the year you play? Yep, yep, yep, yep. I don't even know. Does that league still exist? Are they still there? I think they still exist. I think they're called the Empire State League. It's one of these things that keeps changing its name. I think water town still does some sort of semi professional baseball there. I think I'm not I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, they're called the Empire the Empire Professional Baseball League. Okay. Yeah. And these are the teams they have Malone, New York, Fort Covington, New York, Sarenek Lake and Tupper Lake, which are all pretty much you go. If you go towards Montreal, they're all yeah, like that. I could have swore there were like four teams when we played in that league. Maybe even three. There was nothing. Yeah, and they still have four teams and past teams have included the Puerto Rico Islanders. I don't know how they fit into the Empire State League. Yeah, okay. The travel team definitely travel squad. Yeah. Oh, my god. I said, that would be a good episode just to talk about your experience playing up in Old Orchard, but you said you bounced around as a player as well. Or did you bounce around? Yeah, just really as a player. I played a couple games with the Rockler with the Traur of the Air, the Eagles, which yeah, can am when they were down in Rockland one day they needed a pitcher and they called me up. Like I was at a just a friend's house party and they called me up the night before the like, Hey, do you want to start tomorrow? It's like sure. Sure. Fine. I think I gave up like one run over five innings or something. So is he good at it? But yeah. And then and then shortly after that, I just went into the coaching side and I coached with the Blues for the first six years. And then I took over as GM in 22. So okay. Okay. And then and you said you're in Evansville for as a worker. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Stint in Evansville just like about a month or so. And then I went and joined and then I went and joined Bristol shortly after that. So and then are you originally from you're not originally from Bristol? Are you or no, I grew up down in like the Southwestern part of Connecticut. Oh, okay. I lived in Waterbury. I live in New Millford now with my wife. I work at the Taft school. I work in athletics. So the Bristol stuff is just my my side job that I do. Yeah. Kind of at night and on the weekends and then I work in boarding school athletics during the day. So kind of like me. I school teacher during the day and ballpark hunter by night or weekend, wherever I can get out to. Yeah. I think this summer for me is going to be a lot of watching Caitlin Clark. Yeah. She's just packing the crowds into into the game bridge fieldhouse. So it's do you have a good review on a walk on a park in Pittsfield? Has any of your hunters gone out? Yeah. We had a lot of that. That's another ballpark. I drove out to one nine and came back one cone of park. Yeah. We have a review up there. I Did you hit the sun delay when you were there? Do they know? I didn't I didn't hit the sun delay. There was a that the night notice. I noticed there was the sun, but there wasn't this this big delay. Actually, I actually have a YouTube video of my my experience there from 2022. They were the Berkshire Black Bears. And they had I think the guy who owned it was trying to do something more with it. And they were in the I guess they're in the northeastern league at the time. Yeah. That was still the name of the league, which is I think all those teams are now the front frontier league. But I saw the owls. I noticed when I was sitting behind home plate, not directly behind the backstop. Yep. There was no netting. I'm thinking of a foul ballcubs my way. I'm getting smacked. Oh, yeah. Losing a couple teeth. But that that was a fun ballpark. I like like those are the type of stadiums. I like those. Those are I love it. I played there a little bit. Just I played there coach there. And that's one of my favorite ball parks in the area. Just like I mean talk about old school. They're going out with little number signs and changing the score in the middle of the inning. So it's cool to see that. I like that stuff. Yeah. We actually had a review of that from 2014. I go I don't think they have a team play in there in one of the summer leagues, which then was the futures league. It was the Pitzfield Sons. Yeah, it was the Sons, which I'm kind of shocked that nobody's playing there. So the the city condemned the field because it was unsafe. So they didn't play 23 or 24. And I think they have to tear it down at least partially because it's just so I think one of those seasons they actually put the bleachers on the field because they wanted to provide some sort of viewing experience, but they couldn't have people sit underneath safely. So yeah, but I think there's plans to build a new stadium. A pretty big like a kind of like a muszy field 2.0. So. Okay. So we've got 2000 seats. Yeah, 2000 seats, probably about $30 million to build, but we do it right. It'll be really cool. And Pitzfield wants that. They could totally support that. Their their city has definitely grown in the past 10 years and gotten better and better. So yeah, no, it's it's a shame to see one of those classic ballpark skill and but I get it if it's condemned and it's going to cost more to rebuild and to build the new one then yeah, yeah, hopefully they keep hopefully they face it away from the sun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, now they have lights. So they have to worry about that. Yeah, you're not having one o'clock games. And then they would have the owls hanging up. That was just kind of a funky little ballpark. You just yeah, you just a beer shake. They didn't really did. Did you try that when you were there? It's like, oh, this I was there 2000 milk. I was okay. I mean, God, that's 20. That was in the I think independent ball at that time. I was in the panel ball at the time. This was before summer collegiate sort of like it came what it is now. Yeah, you know, even now I have to explain what summer collegiate baseball is to a lot of people back then. I don't know if I even knew what the heck it was. So yeah, I was I was a young kid just, you know, out of college or just just about to graduate and so I can't I'm going to drive the pitsfield. Yeah, I'm going to drive up to Albany Sea game and come right back and that's cool. I'm at home at three o'clock in the morning. This is yeah, I did have we did have cell phones back that don't think like good lord, I didn't get a flat tire anyway. I know, you know, now it's your Pennsylvania or Kentucky or something. It has happened most of the time during the day when I get a flat tire. So luckily, so nice. Well, that day I find out some information about you and I found information about a wonconia park that's yeah, I'm not aware of that sometimes sometimes you got to get people on the new thing. So I appreciate that's true. All right. Yeah. Well, Jordan, I appreciate you coming on. I want to wish you the best of luck this year. Where can people find you on the internet? At Bristol Blues on Instagram and then you can find us just by searching Bristol Blues on Facebook page as well. Yeah, very easy to figure it easy Bristol blues baseball.com. Yeah, and we'd love to see you come out to a game. If anyone watches that's local, come out to muzzle field opening days on June 6th June 6th. And if you can't make a June 6, you're you guys play until the end of July, beginning of 2022 home game season where we're done playoff start beginning of August. So we're done about a week after that at the most. So all right, you've got plenty of time playing your trip up to that part of Connecticut, plenty of ball parks to visit. Thank you, Mark. You guys know what to do. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care. All right. That was Jordan. He took off a little bit of broccoli. Usually I pause and we talked for a moment, but he's got things to do. I got things to do too. He's still teaching unlike me who's a on summer break. So Jordan, thank you. That was a good episode. Sometimes I get folks on here and I know I know what we're going to talk about, but when he started adding his playing career in Maine and then he brought in the ballpark in Pitsfield, Mass and his time in Evansville. It's like, oh, this is awesome. This is awesome. Old Orchard Park. I have never been to a game there. Has anybody been up there to see a game? I don't even know what the heck goes on there. You know, here's the thing with some baseball teams like Bristol's been Bristol for, you know, since 2015, but some of these other ballpark, you know, it's like, hey, we're in this league. We're in that league. We changed the name. We had a new ownership. We didn't play this year. We didn't play that year. We came back. We left. It gets crazy. Like right now in Kokomo. There's no baseball Kokomo this year. The Kokomo Jack Rapids cease to exist. I know the North Woods league is trying to get back in there for the 2026s. And I think that some other teams are trying to get in there as well. I would end up the prospect league. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Frontier League was trying to stick its mits into Kokomo to add a little pro ball to the ceremony. So it's amazing. You have some cities that, you know, just can attract many different types of teams. But Bristol, it's a fun little ballpark. That giant press box they had above the third base line. You're at two sets of stairs, like these old school stairs you had to climb up. And it was just such a cool vantage point. And if you go to my YouTube, video you can check it out because I do shoot from up there and it's just from 2010 videos a little not as stellar as you would see now but you get the gist of it so the blues have been doing a great job attracting a thousand close to 2,000 people a game sounds like a lot of fun sounds like a good time and you know any CBL there's a lot of old funky little ballpark especially Newport Rhode Island Cardines Field one of the most weirdest strangest stadiums I've ever experienced but my goodness they got 2,000 people there to watch the game and if you hit a foul ball do not chase it or you be spedig the night in the local hospital because you're right on the main avenue going into town so listen to the the gentleman that does the games there he was a hoot anyway I hope you've enjoyed this episode and you found it a gas this is Mark of the ballpark hunter saying check out my YouTube page and Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and threads and blue sky running got too many too many things out there but Twitter Twitter is a pretty good place to go to I am on blue sky but I do more of the stadium journey work for them so check out stadium journey on blue sky or check them out at stadiumjourney.com if you have a ballpark you want to know more about check our reviews they're they're pretty up to date they're pretty up to date so hopefully you will enjoy your summer chase and some ballpark so until next time peace love and ball parks happy hunting