1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Charlie Meyer (Lincoln Saltdogs GM): June 21st, 10am

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Rundown of the season up till now, and ticket prices at the MCWSAdvertising 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 Coppull 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 ticket FM.com. Welcome everybody, one-on-one on a Tuesday. Thank the folks to Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul. And if you have not had it, I do not know what you were waiting for. I don't know.

I don't know how to explain it to you. But get yourself down there. I think they're closed today, Monday and Tuesday, and then back open for business. But the food truck's out somewhere in town so we can find out from Charles where they are. But good stuff. Tuesdays as well, we talk a little with baseball.

4-2, 464. 5-685, Sardham and text line. If you want to text in, you got questions or comments, Honda-Lincoln Hotline, if you want to check out the video stream. Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter live now. Live on Twitter. You can do that, and here's what you have to do today.

Our guest on the Honda Lincoln Hotline, President and General Manager, Lincoln Salt Dogs. Let's bring in Charlie Meyer. Charlie, how are we doing today, kind sir? Good morning, D.P. Great. How about yourself? It's a beautiful day, and you guys are on the road, and then you come back home this weekend. Give us kind of where we are now, where,

the salt dogs now as far as record and then who they're facing over the next couple of days? Sure. Right now we're in third in the U.S. Division. It was an 1814 record and basically over the last week or last 10 games anyway, we're five and five. So we're kind of what I would call treading water. We got some injuries we're dealing with. But yeah, we got we're on the road in Sioux Falls here for the next three nights. Then we're back home this weekend with Winnipeg for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then we have Kane County coming in Monday through Thursday. So we got a set of seven games coming up here over the weekend and to end to next week.

We're going to give listeners a chance to win some vouchers to come see the Salt Dogs when they come back to town. Got a question for the listeners. And if you guys can text in and tell us for. who's leading the salt dogs in RBI, we will have a packet of four vouchers for you to use any time during the next home stand. So if you can text that in, we'll give you tickets to see the salt dogs as well. I'm always fascinated by minor league promotion and what you guys tend to do. And you guys have done such a good job of setting up events.

So when you come back Friday, what's going on Friday night? Well, Friday night is Marvel Night, so we've got a marvelous steel deal, but we'll have some Marvel characters here, Spider-Man, and we'll be here as well as Captain Marvel for the kids to get pictures with and autographs. So we have Marvel happening. We've got a rally towel giveaway that will go with Marvel for that night. And Saturday we have the Christo Ray Church Hispanic Festival throughout the day here on Saturday, as well as our Homer's Heroes game Saturday morning where we play with the Homers Heroes kids, the disabled kids on Saturday morning, and then they come to the game that night and our watchdogs for the game.

And so lots of different activities. And Sunday is Family Fun Day at the ballpark. sponsored by Casey's, and so we have a lot of family activities for families to come out and enjoy. And then next week, we've got our Haymarket Hodeown on Monday, which is kind of a country western night. And then we've got our marvelous partnership that we have with the Nebraska Medical Association in Lancaster County Health as far as Triple Play Tuesdays for bring three non-perishables, and people can get a GA ticket to come see the Salt Dogs on Tuesday, and then Wednesday is our wiener Wednesdays,

and then Thursdays. We'll close it out with the Cornersker State Games torch run that night. So lots of different things going on here for the next homestand, but just always trying to create family fun activities for people to come out and enjoy. Charlie, what, I mean, the ticket prices ranges for folks that don't know. What are the general ticket prices for any evening there? Evening, it's $10 for a general admission. I got $12 uppers, $14 lowers, and $18 club level tickets.

So anywhere between $10 and $18 fans can come out to the ballpark and catch a game. Because we were talking about the College World Series and the pricing out of fans. But the salt dogs do it. Yeah, and it's kind of crazy to me. Because, as I said, you can't, I mean, you're taking away the thing, you're taking away family's ability to go and enjoy baseball. And you guys are being the lead ambassadors in the state for keeping family entertainment in place. How do you make the decision that other people are missing out on?

Well, I mean, I think our thread here, DP is the fact that we have always been, it's family, it's fun, and it's affordable. We need to make sure we hit those three. marks to be successful and trying to make it, you know, affordable for people to come out to the ballpark and enjoy some baseball and enjoy some between-a-ning entertainment as well as giveaways, et cetera. It's just, and the partnerships that we have with the various corporations here in Lincoln that, as partners has been, obviously helps us subsidize and make sure that we keep our ticket costs down so people can't afford to come out and can.

and enjoy an evening at the ballpark. But it's really the thread that makes it all work. And hopefully we can continue to do that down the road. It's disheartening when you see things like what's happening at the College World Series or even at Major League Baseball as far as just the cost alone to get to see games. It's just getting, you know, where it's just not affordable, unfortunately, for families to be able to go and enjoy

what I would call America's pastime. Charlie, I mean, so let me ask, for a family of four, what would that cost the average family of four to come watch Salt Lake Well, if they just get the general emission bird tickets, it'd be a $40 ticket or $40 for their tickets. And then obviously, you know, you come to winter Wednesdays or Thursdays, the different things. So with food and beverage, you know, you're probably talking $5 to $10 per person.

So, you know, for less than $100, you can come out to a game and have tickets and get some food and get some ice cream and enjoy an evening at Haymarket Park. I mean, to go through it, Saturday, $2 tallboy. So for the single folks that want to get out, I mean, it's not going to break your bank for you to come out and enjoy. Yep, absolutely. And that's the whole premise of the different promotions, whether it's between or Wednesday or Wednesday or. thirsty Thursday or even the $2 tallboys on Saturdays is just trying to create activities and opportunities for families and fans to come out and enjoy good professional baseball and enjoy Haymarket Park and the skyline of downtown Lincoln.

We're talking to Charlie Meyer, the Lincoln Saw Dogs, and it highlights on a Sunday with the Sunday Family Fun Day. Again, if you're getting tickets at $10 a pie. and you've got $1 small popcorn. You've got $1 for small soda, for 12-ounce sodas. That's not happening everywhere. It's just not. Like, kudos.

Like, I really want to celebrate that because it's important for the game to grow, and it can't grow if you're excluding folks and you're just pricing people out. There's no doubt. I mean, that's exactly the premise. And, you know, again, like I said, It's trying to work with the staples that people, you know, when people come out to the ballpark,

they're looking for, you know, popcorn, they're looking for peanuts, they're looking for a beer, for sodas. I mean, that's the staple of coming out to the ballpark and watching a game and trying to make sure we keep those costs manageable so fans can afford to enjoy it. That's really what our whole premise and our threat is as far as what we try to do. Charlie, you mentioned that the team's going through. You've got some injury issues. Talk a little bit about the health of the roster right now.

Well, we lost Buddy Baumann, our best pitcher, got picked up and he went to Mexico. And then our other, our closer, Brandon kind of ran into some injuries and ended up retiring. So we ended up having a couple holes right away in the pitching rotation on the roster. anyway. And fortunately, we picked up a player, Zach Keenan from Middle Tennessee State University, and he's already pitched two games for us as a starter and is 2-0. And he basically was named, well, he was named Pitcher of the Week by the American Association, which is, this is our third award we've won this year with our pitchers with Buddy Bowman and Kyle Kinman, who's still on the roster, and then Kenan just won it yesterday.

And so the pitching's kind of been keeping us in this. You know, now we went up to Winnipeg, and we're a little shorthanded up there due to the vaccination rules and that type of thing. But we got one out of three games up there, and now we're in Sioux Falls, and hopefully we're getting through some of these hamstring and groin injuries that we're dealing with that we can kind of get to a roster. and get to a starting lineup that we can have each and every night because that's been really kind of the challenge for Brett Jody,

as far as the starting lineup each and every night, has been different since opening day just due to dealing with hamstring and groins. And then obviously when we've lost some pitching, we've been able to, fortunately, kind of plug and play and find some additional pitching. But, you know, when you lose that experience, it's sometimes hard to basically replace that. I guess I've always equated it to you.

You've lost an A player. And then unfortunately you're probably finding C and low B or C players that you're replacing that A player with. So that really has an effect on their roster. But fortunately, we're hanging in here. And now we'll get back home here later this week and have a week of home games. And Haymarket Park's been pretty good to us.

over the first part of the season anyway. Charlie, how do you define, how would you describe your process for finding replacement players? Well, the process is ongoing each and every day. You know, I'm basically looking at release wires from teams from Major League Baseball. also now that the college season has completed and people are waiting for the draft here, which has been pushed back until later in July, which it used to be right now at the time of when the College World Series was going on, you would be able to, there would be a lot of players out there that were undrafted

that you could go find and add to your rosters. So it's really a challenge right now. COVID has had a huge impact. might not have a minor league baseball for one year. That had a big impact on a lot of players that were an affiliated ball that ended up, that were chasing their dream, they ended up just retiring because they, you know, they just, without playing that one year, they went and found jobs and basically gave up their dream chasing to get to Major League Baseball.

So the pool of players and Major League Baseball is also reduced. the number of minor league teams they've had over the past two seasons. And so there's just not as many players out there to go pick from. But it's, you know, again, it's a lot. It's networking. Brett's got a great network with his experience that he's had at the major league level as well as the independent level and, you know, myself. And we're just, you know, we're on the phones calling people and checking.

And people are calling us too. There's other players reaching out to us, emailing us, calling us, looking for an opportunity. So it's just a matter of trying to plug and play what is the best piece for our puzzle that we're trying to put together each and every day for the roster. But it's an ongoing challenge. And Brett and I were talking yesterday with an off day.

They were coming back from Winnipeg to Sioux Falls and just trying to identify what players were out there. And so it's just it's an ongoing process. to hopefully better your roster throughout the season. And unfortunately, you know, there's the good side of it is there's players that get picked up and get moved on to Major League Baseball to the affiliated side, which that's what our whole goal is for these players.

But it really becomes a challenge for us to try to replace those players when they do get picked up. Charlie, is it an advantage being independent versus affiliated with a parent club that can help? maneuver players in and out and kind of help you with identifying talent. Is there an advantage or is it full disadvantage of being independent? Well, you know, my thought is, I mean, with the independent side of it, we really have the free reign of doing what or how we want to work through that process

with players and that type of thing. where, excuse me, the affiliated side, they're basically kind of dictating to you that, hey, these are the players that are going to be playing, and this is your roster, and this is the set of players you're playing with, whether you're winning or losing, they're putting those players on the field and saying, I want to see this player play center field or play shortstop, or I want to see this guy pitch, so many innings, et cetera. They're really kind of dictating to you what and how you run and operate the club. where we really can do all that ourselves.

And, yeah, the challenge of it is, you know, players, finding the players and that type of thing. But it's, you know, the network, I mean, players on our team, they know people, there's players around the league that are looking to move around or if they get released from another team, they're looking to try to maybe jump on with yourself. So there's a lot of movement that's going on.

I think there's a lot more flexibility with the independent side than there is the affiliated side. because you don't have some of the players that have signed large signing bonuses or contracts that basically are playing. I always use the equation that there may be a player that signed a $50,000 signing bonus and another player that signed a half-million dollar signing bonus. Well, they're going to play that half-million dollar guy, whether he's not as good as the $50,000 guy because they've got that money invested in them.

So there's a lot of politics and things at that type of thing that happened, unfortunately on the player side that can really affect the way your performances on the field. And what our whole league is about is we all play to win and try to get the best nine guys on the field each and every night to win games. And that's really not the affiliated model. Their bottle is more trying to develop the players to get them to the major league level. I just think the way that you handle it with the financial restrictions and the salary cap that's in play and trying to get folks in and out

you guys do an exceptional job. My heart cries for you sometimes going, geez, I wish there was an easier way for it to get done, but you guys do a great job with it. Oh, great. Thanks for doing it. Yeah, it is a fun process. It can be frustrating at times, and it's just a matter of just, you know, you kind of pick the pieces up.

put the puzzle back together and, you know, and again, there's the injury side of it, and there's all these factors that are happening. But, you know, the end result is that you hopefully put a good team on the field each and every night, and the fans have some fun watching these guys perform, and hopefully these guys get moved up to the next level. Well, I can tell you, my two trips down have been fun so far. I will see you Friday, 3 o'clock from BP with DP. For the first one, we've got one listener, and then we've got some Huskers.

Eric Strickland, who, of course, was a minor leaguer. Sure. He's going to come down and take some hacks. Brand Banks from football will come take some hacks. I'll give away one other spot tomorrow, during tomorrow's one-on-one show. So we'll do that. And then we'll come down and lock and load for you. All right.

We're looking forward to it. It'll be fun. And it looks like the weather's going to be great. And we'll have a fun. BP with DP on Friday. Looking forward to it. Charlie, thank you for your time, kind sir. Good luck in two falls,

and we'll see you when you come down here to take on Winnipeg. All right. Take care, man. We'll see you on Friday. There's Charlie Meyer of the Lincoln Salt Dogs. What's worth the break. Yeah, so the trivia. Salt Dogs leader in RBI. We'll go away passes. So you see the Salt Dogs. And then tomorrow, you get a chance to win and take BP with DP down at the Haymarket and with the Salt Dogs.

We're actually going to be in the rotation. We'll have our own rotation of five. Yeah, come down and take some hacks, run the outfit a little bit. Have some fun. We'll do that tomorrow. We'll be back to one-on-long. 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.