By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
It’s a pro baseball spring rite — the team photo on the ball field where the players are cracking jokes in between the photographer’s clicks a couple of days before the season opener.
Soaking up the scene at the Las Vegas 51s photo session at Cashman Field Tuesday afternoon was Chuck Johnson, the Triple A ball club’s GM who will help oversee the season-long good-bye to good ol’ Cashman while also mapping out details for the unveiling of the team’s sparkling new venue in Summerlin in 2019.
It’s been a strange time at Cashman for Johnson, who saw a new pro soccer team, Las Vegas Lights FC, take over the ball yard for most of February.
And now on Friday — just a day after the 51s’ Thursday home-opener (and Dollar Beer Night) — Johnson will chat with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) about how they want to say adios this summer to the ball park that has not exactly received rave reviews from the big-league parent clubs to the Triple A ballplayers who have used the venue over the years.
In 2019, the 51s move to the $150 million, 10,000-seat Las Vegas Ballpark next-door to the Vegas Golden Knights’ training center along South Pavilion Center Drive in Downtown Summerlin near Red Rock Resort.
While the new venue’s 22 suites and pool beyond the centerfield fence have received lots of attention, Johnson liked other features that have not received as much publicity.
For example, the ballplayers will enjoy underneath hitting cages built into the ballpark, there’s a third locker room for outside performers such as a choir or band and mascots across the world will appreciate that the 51s’ mascot will have his own locker space to air out his costume, Johnson said.
He envisions other uses at the venue such as a place to house concerts, beer festivals, a haunted house during Halloween and movies in the field.
Former long-time pitcher Jerry Reuss, a Summerlin resident who works on the 51s radio broadcasts, offered a few comments on the team moving from downtown to his neck of the woods.
The LVCVA, the team’s landlord at Cashman, will pay 51s owner Howard Hughes Corp. $80 million over 20 years for the Las Vegas Ballpark naming rights deal and affiliated sponsorship goodies at the ball yard.
The 51s will give their 80-90 sponsors a crack at re-upping their deals at the new Summerlin venue, Johnson said. The companies that bought outfield wall ads on those 20-foot-tall outfield fences had their commercial spots painted at Cashman.
You won’t see that at the new ball yard in Summerlin.
“This is an aging art. This will be the last season we’ll have our painter painting signs,” Johnson said.
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Another big change will be the scoreboard. The 37-by-57-foot scoreboard at Cashman will not be making the 15-mile move to Summerlin.
The new all-digital scoreboard at the Summerlin field will be 40 feet high and 100 feet wide, Johnson said.
While the 51s are ending their 36-year run at Cashman, the Triple A team is also losing its parent big league club. The New York Mets will use Las Vegas as its affiliate one final year before Howard Hughes Corp. finds a major league partner in Summerlin next summer. The Padres, Dodgers and Blue Jays have all used Las Vegas for its Triple A team in past years.
“The expectations are high (for the new ballpark) and rightfully so,” Johnson said during Tuesday’s sunny afternoon. “We’re going to be given the jewel of Minor League Baseball.”
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