Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Well now, baseball is back in Las Vegas. The Triple-A Aviators staged their season-opener in Howard Hughes Corporation’s $150 million ball yard Thursday in Downtown Summerlin and there was a tangible sense with 5,002 fans in the venue that we are emerging from the darkness of this evil novel coronavirus pandemic.
Sure, the hard-core local hardball fans missed Finn the bat dog, the amazing canine that retrieves bats from players after they put the ball into play. Blockbuster news alert: Finn didn’t make the COVID-19 bubble, said Don “Donnie Baseball” Logan, the Aviators always amiable team president.
The Vegas Golden Knights have had nearly 4,000 fans for games in their arena near the Strip, while Las Vegas Motor Speedway also had fans for NASCAR and NHRA events.
But there’s something about hot dogs, beers in tall plastic cups, baseball helmets filled with nachos and goofy mascots posing with grinning fans on a ballpark concourse that gives you a sense of “normalcy” after the last Triple-A baseball game was played in Las Vegas 20 months ago in early September 2019. COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 Minor League Baseball season.
This is the ballpark that led the minors in attendance in 2019 when Summerlin master developer/Aviators owner Howard Hughes Corp. opened the amenity-packed ballpark with 22 swanky suites, a luxurious club/bar area and a swimming pool beyond the centerfield fence with a 360-degree concourse tying in points of sale for food, drinks and merchandise. Moving from Cashman Field in downtown Las Vegas to this ballpark gem in Summerlin in the west Vegas Valley was like trading in a Ford Pinto for a Maserati.
LVSportsBiz.com made four laps around the ballpark concourse tonight and it was evident that people were primed to start living their pre-pandemic lives again. Even though masks were required as part of the protocols at the outdoor venue, we also observed that perhaps that one out of every five people were not wearing masks.
The Aviators, the former Las Vegas 51s, are Las Vegas’ oldest professional team and it’s evident from seeing many of the old workers and fans that these games offer these folks a sense of purpose and rhythm to their lives.
Before the game there was Aviators play-by-play voice Russ Langer with his wife and toddler son in a stroller on the concourse before the game. I recognized other longtime baseball team workers who carry walkie-talkies and have jobs that look like the main duty is to walk the concourse and keep an eye on things.
The Las Vegas team is the affiliate of the Oakland Athletics, a bit of irony and poetic nuance in light of the Oakland Raiders leaving the Bay area to plant new roots in a $2 billion domed stadium project off the Strip and a headquarters and practice center in Henderson.
The Aviators tonight played the Triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giant, the Sacramento River Cats. Let the record show the Summerlin Nine went down to defeat, 9-1, at the claws of the River Cats Thursday evening.
Minor League Baseball had returned to Las Vegas and people took a psychic step toward reclaiming lives on a balmy night in the western suburbs.
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Looks like an office building is being built across the street from Las Vegas Ballpark.
On the other side of the ballpark is the Golden Knights headquarters, City National Arena. Wonder how close the ice center and baseball park are to each other? Take a look:
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