1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Charlie Meyer (Lincoln Saltdogs GM): June 14th, 10am

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Tell us more about the Saltdogs, how they came to be, and how they continue to entertain familiesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the Cople Chevrolet GMC Studios. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. Brought you by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Happy Tuesday, everybody. 402-464-5-6-85. Sartar-Human Text 9 Honda-Lincoln Hotline. The video streams are up.

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the ticketfm.com and listen or watch. Right? Whatever you want to do. We've got the shop. We've got the shop up as well. Yes. So the shop is there if you want. And if you spend $20 dollars you get 20% off a headband yeah so the headbands hats t-shirts all available there so you can get them

as well we're going to fire it up today because uh and again i was told i went to went down to haymarket saturday night and um our buddy jeremy i didn't tell anybody i was going and i get a text on the phone in the second inning and he goes listen if you're going to show up and this is the way they're going to play you're going to have to show up every game. He's like, well, they score 10 runs, and then they score two more. They score 12 in the same inning. He goes, yeah, you're going to have to come to every game. So we're going to send folks to see the Salt Dogs,

and the best way to get more information on what's going on down at Haymarket. And with the Salt Dogs, let's talk to the GM. Let's bring in Charlie Meyer of the Lincoln Sawd Dogs. Charlie, thanks for doing this morning. How are you doing today? Great. How are you guys doing? It's good.

It's good. Like, you guys had, I mean, you know, Saturday night was fun. It's always fun when you're on that side of the ledger. But yeah, that was a pretty incredible second inning. You know, to see have 16 batters come to the play and score 12 runs. And, I mean, it was very uncommon that that happens. And unfortunately, for us, it was great. And unfortunately, it was so good for Sioux Falls, unfortunately.

Yeah, where does Sioux Falls fall in the league as far as? competition. The standings? Yeah. Well, right now they're in the bottom of the West Division. We're in the third spot. There are six teams in each division. And we're in third, and they're in six right now.

They've really struggled with some pitching and talking with the manager when he was here over the weekend. You know, they've had some injuries with their pitchers. And so that can make it very difficult. and we're kind of in the same boat here with some injuries with pitchers. And fortunately, our offense has been able to overcome some of our pitching woes here. But, you know, it's a long season. We're about a quarter of the way through it. So we've got about 74, 75 games left to go.

And we like where we're at right now. We'll see what the next few weeks hold. Charlie, how do you get through as the GM in this space, where you have a salary cap and then limited resources. It's kind of difficult, as you said, if you go through injuries and you've got to move players and you've got to find talent, and then it has to fit what you have available.

What's your philosophy? How do you get through and keep the roster looking the way you need for it to get through the 90-game season? Well, I think we have to really have a very open mind here. The one thing that's really kind of changed the game here has been the whole process of what Major League Baseball has done with their draft and everything and pushing that back because typically the draft would be happening this week with the College World Series and everything started.

Now it's pushed way back into July. And so there's a lot of players that have finished their college careers that are basically kind of sitting and waiting to be drafted where we, you know, ourselves, Sioux Falls, other teams in the league would be adding some of this talent from some of these teams because they were either not drafted or were drafted in the very low rounds or the high upper rounds. I guess now there's only 20 rounds. So it's a whole, the dynamic and the landscapes change dramatically here.

And so we're fighting to kind of go through that process. Obviously, when there's players that are available that got released from affiliated ball, you know, where before there's probably maybe one or two teams talking to them. Now, roughly all 10, 12 teams of the league are talking to a player that's been released if they need to fill a pitching hole or they need to fill a position hole on their roster. So it's, like I said, the dynamics have changed here dramatically. I think it's a key thing and working with Brad Jody, our manager, you know, just having kind of an open mind to it and, you know, kind of deal.

with them when things happen. We can't control hamstring injuries or groin injuries or arm injuries with pitchers. I mean, when it happens, we just need to pivot and try to figure out what's the best step, you know, the best approach as far as going forward here. And that's really what, that's kind of what, that's my philosophy anyway. And for right now, it seems to be working. We're talking to Charlie Meyer, GM of the Lincoln Salt Dogs. Charlie, tell the story, I mean, because you're in Nebraska and this, not only, I mean, it pays the bills, but this is a labor of love for you.

So how did you get involved with the salt dogs and with baseball and Jim? Well, you know, Jim Abel and the Abel family, Jim had the vision back in 1998, 99, to bring professional baseball back to Lincoln. It hadn't been here since the early 60s. And I was either in the right meeting at the right time or the wrong meeting at the wrong time with Jim. And he had this idea and said, hey, you want to look into this? And here we are 22 years later with, you know, a professional baseball franchise here in the Lincoln community that's been very well supported by the corporate and the fan base. And, you know, we're really, if you look around the league and our situation,

We're considered really kind of a small market, but the partnership with the University of Nebraska and us, as well as the city of Lincoln, when we put this all together some 22 years ago, created an opportunity. And I think really kind of started the whole sports triangle, obviously Memorial Stadium was here. And we ended up bringing a Haymarket Park to life in 2001 and then now Pinnacle Bank Arena. So when you think about the sports triangle down in the downtown area, it's been a great process. And I've been blessed and fortunate to have a great run with this. And Jim Abel and the Abel family gave Lincoln a gym here with the stadium as well as professional baseball. And, yeah, it's a lot of games throughout the summer. We play 100 games, 112 days, and have 50.

50 home games. And so, but the community supports it. We've been very fortunate that the corporate sponsorships, people enjoy coming out to the ballpark. COVID has kind of put a wrench into that here the last couple years, trying to get people to reengage into the group outings and that type of thing. But it's starting to, it's starting to come back. And like I said, our whole point here is it's family, it's fun, it's affordable.

That's really what we want to try to strive and do each and every week and every day when we got games going on here. And so that's all fun in games. That's kind of that's been our motto for the last 22 years. And you have to have fun at what we're doing here. Charlie, can you tell us, give the listeners who may not know, but a little bit of the story of Brett Jody and this coaching staff. I mean, they seem to do a fantastic job managing talent. I mean, again, with all the restrictions and all the boundaries that,

that are in play. But Brett Jody seems to have a group that that stays connected and plays connected. Yeah, I know that's anytime you're in team sports and that type of thing, it all really starts at the top. And, you know, Brett comes to us here from South Carolina. He comes here for about 125 to 135 days a summer. And then he works from South Carolina when we're in the offseason here as far as putting the roster and everything together. But, you know, it's so key each and every year that we go through this process as far as putting the puzzle together of the roster because obviously you're getting, acquiring talent from all over the country

and even foreign countries and then trying to make it all work. You know, we're fortunate, knock on wood. Lincoln's an attraction that a lot of players like to come play at Haymarket Park. and we're kind of in the middle of the league. So from a travel standpoint, it's not too overburdenous, but there's significant travel here, traveling to Winnipeg and Manitoba, and then traveling down to Texas and then traveling over to Chicago.

I mean, there's some long bus trips and that type of thing. But Brett's done a great job of putting together a lot of good guys that have fun. I mean, that's the whole focus of this, at the pitchers and the position players get along, and we've been very fortunate. The clubhouse is good. We look at it from our front office standpoint to the team on the field. We're going to win together and we're going to lose together,

and it's all about acquiring talent and having people enjoy playing in Lincoln, and we've got the host family program that's very beneficial for us to have players with families throughout the Lincoln, and outside the Lincoln area that hosts these players throughout the summer. And so all these things all come together. But Brett's done a great job of acquiring talent and then obviously managing it to his best ability with, you know, working through injuries, et cetera, et cetera. But it's been a good fit.

Charlie, you mentioned, you know, the housing program, how can fans and listeners help you guys out? What's required from that to help players have accommodations throughout the year? Well, what that really is is we basically have a partnership with the host families. Some people that are empty nesters, they have great an opportunity for players to live in their basement. And, you know, it might be one player, maybe two or three players. But the host family program is a big component of, you know, saving housing costs. because we can't, from a league standpoint, or from a franchise standpoint, we can't,

we can only provide housing for up to five players. So we've got 25 on the roster, so we've got to find housing for 20-plus players. And so fortunately, we've got people in the community that open up their homes for these players for the summer. And they're here a week and gone a week roughly every week with the schedule. But yeah, families could reach out, just give us a call and say they'd be interested in being a host family and we get the players introduced to them and you know it's a like I said it's a fun deal I mean what's really cool about it is that we've got host families from 2001 and players from 2001 that there's still relationships with players and host families I mean it creates an

opportunity for a relationship that's a long-standing relationship and you know some of these players obviously are here for a short time and gone and sometimes they're here for the whole season. But it's a great program for us, and fortunately Lincoln and families here open their doors for these players to come stay with them. Charlie, you guys do an exceptional job

of these added value events. And like tonight, well, I mean, tonight you've got, you know, folks are donating perishables. Give the folks a little bit of that. And what's the philosophy? Because that's added work for every home game, but it's the greater good of the community. Yeah, I mean, we're, our focus here, and I think it's really, it comes from the able family and that type of thing because they're very philanthropic with their own foundation.

But we stress, and Brett and I talk a lot with the players about giving back, because we're only as good as we give back to our communities. And, you know, Lincoln is a great community tonight. his, our food bank night that's sponsored by the Nebraska Medical Association in Lancaster County Health. People, but people bring three parish rolls and they get a free GA tickets, and, you know, here's an opportunity for us as an organization to give back and help people in need, and people can come and enjoy a baseball game. And, you know, we do a lot of different things with Homer's Heroes, kids that are in the, there's about 120 kids in the Homer's Heroes,

is disabled program that we play a game with them here later this month. And we just went through last week and had seven or eight different stops within the Lincoln City Libraries for getting their summer reading program kicked off with players and going out and reading to kids and interacting with kids. And then we had the recognition event on Friday, which there was a lot of kids that were at the ballpark with their parents. and a lot of those kids had never been here. So it's just an opportunity for us to open our doors

and interact with the community throughout the year. And, you know, we've got, like I said, great partnerships with different sponsors. Likewise with you guys and other media sponsors that we have to communicate and let people know that, hey, come out to the ballpark. You know, hopefully the game is good, but if the game isn't good, you've got a great skyline view of downtown Lincoln and Memorial Stadium. You know, one of the things I'd make sure our players interact with,

when the fans can really interact very well with the players when they're coming on the field or even off the field and trying to make sure they sign autographs and interact with kids because it might be the only time they're at the ballpark. And, you know, we got our watchdog program with the kids run out with the players for the starting lineup and the National Anthem. And so, I mean, there's just all kinds of things that we try to just different touch points to get the community involved and make sure that our players are giving back to the community because, like I said, Lincoln's a great place to be.

Charlie, it's a fantastic night tomorrow night. I mean, first of all, it's Wiener Wednesdays, right? There you go. We're doing $2 hot dogs from February, so we're good with that. Baseball bingo and embarking in the park. Give us a little bit of what Wednesday night is going to be like. Well, you know, Weiner Wednesdays is always kind of a fan favorite, you know, $2 hot dogs. And, you know, with the bark in the park night, so we do, obviously we get lots of different dogs.

It's always kind of fun to watch the dogs walk around the concourse or out in the berm areas and that type of thing. And it's always, always eye-opening to me, but the little dogs are the little, you think, okay, here's all these big dogs walking around. and all of a sudden these little dogs are the ones that are the aggressors. They're always the ones going after the big dog. So we get to see some fun things at the ballpark with that. This one, we won't be doing wiener dog races on this tomorrow night, but later this summer, I think it's August, I'm trying to remember August 10th or something like that.

It's another bark in the park night, and we'll have some wiener dog races and that type of thing. So, again, just trying to make it family fun. And again, it's an affordable opportunity for people to come out to the ballpark and see some baseball and see some other entertainment that we try to do between innings. And it's, you know, thirsty Thursdays is, you know, another fun night. And we have fireworks on Fridays when we have Friday night games and souvenir Saturdays. And then Sunday is a family fun day with families coming up to the ballpark. So we've got a great program with our junior salt dog program.

And so, I mean, there's just a lot of different touch points that make this thing work. And, you know, it's like I said, it gets back to the original thing. But our thread's always been. It's family. It's fun and affordable. And if we can hit on those three pillars, usually we will win. And if we try to cheat on some of those, usually tries to backfire on us, unfortunately. Well, no, we learn as you go.

Next Friday, the 24th, Winnipeg comes to. town, but what I want to ask you about is this thing that's going to happen before during batting practice. Next Friday, 24, BP with DP, Charlie, Charlie, you're going to understand. So allowing them to run the field and check five balls and take a few swings with the team, that's exceptional stuff. Thank you for making that happen. Well, thanks for partnering with us on that.

I think it'll be a fun event. It was one of those things that we've been. done different types of BP events in the past with different organizations and what we'll do here is we'll create a group of, you know, we do BP in groups of four to five players when we're going through it each and every night and we're just going to add a 93-7 the ticket group into the BP process. And so they'll get to take a few swings and strike some balls and get the feeling of what it's like to be a part of batting practice. that we go through each and every day here at Haymarket Park.

Charlie, we're looking forward to it. One last thing, kind, sir. I tried to give you guys some money. And I went to the supernova. I went to the supermarket. Here's saying, I'm a big dude. I'm a big dude. Can I put in a special request for some big boy jerseys and pullovers?

Can I leave that with you? That, you know, I'll pay. I need some 3X stuff that big dudes can wear. You need the 3X. Okay. Yeah, you know, I mean, I saw, you know, I looked that you had the Patriot jerseys up and the patriotic jerseys that are up. They're all large. And then the pullover, the biggest pullover was a large.

I went, oh, no. I, I. Well, we had, we had, well, at this, probably at the start of the season, we would have had three Xs and two Xs and that type of thing. But I'll, I'll get in touch with our merchandise first and make sure we get some new. new items in and new larger items, I guess, I should say. How about that? Here for the rest of the season. Thank you, Charlie.

Thank you very much. I will, look, I will see you sometime before you guys get on the road again. I'll come down the stadium and make sure I seek you out. Great. And then I will talk to you as well next Tuesday. If you have time, you can let us know how your road trip went. That'd be great. All right.

Sounds good. There is. Thank you, Charlie. Thanks, D.P. Take care. All right, man. That's Charlie Meyer from the Lincoln Saw Dogs. Good stuff all the way around.

again, we give away passes. We're going to give away one more set for Thursday night's game based on the best Mount Rushmore text. Or you can call in and just say why yours is the best. So we'll open up the Honda Lincoln Hotline. You can call in and say, this is why you get like a 20-second pitch for why yours is better, or you can just hit the Sartre-Hammon text line as well. 402, 464, 5-6-8-5.

We'll read some of those when we come back next on one-on-one. Download our app by searching 93.7, The Ticket in your app store. You're listening to One-on-One with DP on 937 The Ticket in the Ticketfm.com.