Sat, Nov 21, 2009
Welcome !
Sign Out | Account Settings |
HELP
|
|
|
             
|
|
Rate This Blog
 0 rating(s)
Categories
• sports
• wyoming • Casper • High School sports • Casper Ghosts • Thanksgiving • Holidays • journalism • Sheridan • high school basketball • Gillette • wrestling • Natrona County • Kelly Walsh • Shrine Bowl • football • Junior Colleges • Women's Soccer • LCCC • Northwest • Indoor Football • AIFA • Wyoming Cavalry • college football
Archives
Latest Entries
Loading...
Links
Loading...
  |
Let'r Buck?
News, notes and analysis from Star-Tribune sports reporter Dave Buck
Welcome to Wyoming part I: Casper Ghosts
Posted by:
Dave Buck on
November 21, 2007 at
4:10PM EST
I’m Dave Buck, the (somewhat) new guy on the Star-Tribune’s sports staff. I’ll start my blog off in style by giving you a glimpse of my first few weeks on the job and what I think about the local sports scene so far. My first reporting assignment was covering a “major announcement” by the Casper Rockies on Halloween. It was my second day on the job and I didn’t know much about the team besides it having a terrible record (22-53) last year. My coworkers told me the word on the streets was the team was either going to change its name and / or the affiliation with a major-league club. The press conference, only the second the team besides announcing the team was coming to town, was at the Wonder Bar. An hour or so before the conference I was doing some research on the Casper Rockies’ Web site. I was looking at the bios of team officials to figure out who I might need to talk to and I decided to look at the “contacts” section. That is where things getting interesting. The top of the Web site said “Casper Rockies” but all the e-mail addresses said (name)@ghostsbaseball.com. So much for a big surprise and major announcement. The team was changing its name from Rockies to Ghosts. The Casper Ghosts, just like the cartoon. The team still could change affiliations. Were they that ashamed of the Rockies in the World Series just a few days earlier? I get to the press conference and meet team owner Kevin Haughian and General Manager / Director of Fun Matt Warneke. I tell Warneke that I noticed the new e-mail address and he said that was a glitch in the site. It wasn’t supposed to be changed until after the press conference. Warneke also says there will be some shock value with the announcement. The press conference was a typical announcement. There was an intro hyping the team and then the new logos were unveiled, including two with the cartoon character, Casper the Friendly Ghost dressed as a cowboy. The shock value came with Casper Ghosts logo with fierce “mystical baseball logo.” Also, the new hats are glow in the dark. Glow-in-the-dark hats are pretty shocking. The Ghosts are the first team to utilize the thread with New Era, the makers of the hats. Changing the team name to Ghosts on Halloween could have made for a lot of clichés and cheesiness. Thankfully none of the team officials dressed up in costumes for the press conference (thought they did later, see below) and there weren’t any terrible puns about a “spooky announcement,” the team’s “ghastly performance last year” or “having tricks and treats for fans.” Haughian said this about the date of the announcement: “We thought it was fitting. … It just made way too much sense if we are going with the name Casper Ghosts not to announce it on Halloween.” I went back to the Wonder Bar after work to have a beer and ran into Warneke and a few other team officials. They were dressed as Ghostbusters. Cool costumes, but don’t Ghostbusters get rid of ghosts? Interesting way to promote the new product. Journalists, and most people, should think that clichés are bad. With that in mind I decided not to make Halloween a big part of my story. I did think about it though. This was a joke lead I came up with: The Casper Rockies gave fans a treat on Halloween, but the team’s Web site played a trick on team officials. The team had a spooktacular press conference on Wednesday announcing the team is changing names to the Ghosts. Ghosts’ officials said the change has noting to do with last summer’s ghastly season or the Red Sox haunting sweep of the parent Rockies in the World Series. Despite treating fans, the Ghosts were tricked by the team’s Web site. E-mail addresses under the “contacts” section said “(name)@ghostsbaseball.com” a few hours before the official announcements, so some people already knew the team’s “major announcement.”… I also pondered this lead, but because I didn’t cover the team I didn’t think I had the authority to write this, especially as my first article: Fans now have a new reason to boo the minor-league baseball team in Casper. The Casper Rockies changed its name to the Ghosts on Wednesday at a press conference at the Wonder Bar. “I’d like to see it where when we do something good or the team is announced where everyone in the stands is ‘booing,’” said team owner Kevin Haughian. “I think we can have so much fun with this. We are only going to be limited by our imagination and the name itself will be a springboard to a lot of crazy things.” … Here are links to the online and print stories I did: http://www.trib.com/articles/2007/10/31/news/top_story/0ba5da8f8605835d87257385006cfe35.txt (Online update, has photo of some of new logos) http://www.trib.com/articles/2007/11/02/sports/pro/91242b5f48a813f3872573850080404e.txt (print version) My take on the name change: It makes sense to me as someone who just moved here that the team would want to be named the Ghosts. Haughian said when he moved the team here from Butte, Mont., that he wanted it named the Ghosts, but Rockies officials wanted all minor-league affiliates to have the same name. I didn’t know much about Casper before apply for my job than it was in Wyoming, but I did know who Casper the Friendly Ghost is. One good aspect about the name change, Warneke said, is when people google or search “Casper and Ghost” they will learn about the baseball team, along with the cartoon. This move was made for economic reasons and I respect that. Sports more and more is about making money. Fans were not buying Casper Rockies gear because if they wanted something that said Rockies they would buy Colorado gear, Haughian said. The change was about creating a new identity for the team and it certainly achieved that. Of the 159 teams in the minors 124 have unique names and identities. The majority of the teams who have same names as the parent club are owned by the major-league franchise. The glow-in-the-dark hats should sell well and the line of clothing with Casper the Friendly Ghost is creative and should also make the team some money. I know if I had kids or had some cousins who were young I’d buy them some of the Ghosts gears with the cartoon on it. Having a unique hat with New Era means the team’s hats might be sold across the country or world at hat stores in malls. Making more money with merchandise sales could mean good things for local fans. That extra money might mean the cost of going to games could be cheaper. Covering the team’s press conference was a great first story for me. It allowed me to meet team officials and get a feel for how they operate in a low-key, fun setting. I look forward to working with those guys again. Thanks you if you made it this far. I’ll try to keep future posts shorter. Coming soon: Welcoming to Wyo part II, High School football
Send This | Categories: Casper, Casper Ghosts, sports, wyoming
(1) Comments
|
|
