Dear Anderson Rathbun [General Manager, Burlington Sock Puppets]:
Good day. Sir! I realize you must be very busy since you have not answered any of my missives, so I took it upon myself to analyze the Sock Puppets’ 2021 attendance numbers. I must say, the gates were not exactly spinning on Sundays as 897, 818, 817 and 969 were you total attendance for you four Sunday dates. Lucky for you, I am a man of solutions.
As you well know, increasing full season ticket packages is a sure fire way to increase Sunday attendance is to increase your full season ticket package sales. However, to paraphrase Wash from Moneyball, that’s incredibly hard. One solution is to target church groups, but that can be tough also. Here is a solution though: Sermons on the Mound, which is my most recent epiphany. Now that you have a catchy name for the promotion, invite all the pastors, priests, clergy, chaplains, and preachers to the game to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. Tell them to bring their flock, and the group that cheers the loudest gets discounted ice cream while the winning man of the cloth gets a snazzy designer t-shirt. Perhaps give patrons who show their church bulletin at the ticket booth a discount.
Pitch the entire thing to the leaders of the congregations as a giant Sunday picnic with a great deal of lemonade and iced tea. Let that good ol’ PREACHER EGO work for the Sock Puppets. No man (or woman) of the pulpit can resist a cheering crowd, and throwing out the first pitch his a chance for THE CLOTH to shine. If the leader of the church says it is time to go to a ballgame, the flock will follow, and the flock will want to release PRIMAL SCREAMS when it is their turn to cheer for their leader. I know you are thinking, “But Bads85, what about the atheists and agnostics?” They get Wednesdays, another low attendance day which will address later in another missive.
Hey, your NASCAR team, Kaulig Racing, was speeding around the Los Angeles Coliseum this weekend. Do you have any plans to set up a Sock Puppet booth at the Fontana Speedway later this month at the Auto Club Speedway for the Wise Power 400? I realize that might be too much of an expense to send a crew from Burlington for that, but Fontana is practically in my back yard. I could easily put together a crew in Sock Puppet gear for photo ops to help promote your national brand. Maybe we could give away cookies or something. Perhaps you should make the trip. There is room at Casa de Bads85. Do you think it is ironic that a solar panel company is sponsoring a race of internal combustion engines?
Did you hear that I saved Thirsty Thursday at San Manuel Stadium? After long consultations with his Thirsty Thursday Ambassador (me), Joe Hudson [General Manager; IE 66ers] made the decision to reduce beer prices in 2022 on certain beers on that night from $4.00 to $2.00. Plus, every Thirsty Thursday is a theme night, say like like Bacon Night. I truly am a social justice warrior. I also know how to solve that trucker problem north of the border — one tank. One rolling tank.
Speaking of rolling, I gotta go. My season ticket package with the Emeralds has still not been resolved. I am going to have to contact Max Mennemeier [Ticket Sales Manager; Eugene Emeralds]. They call him The Hammer for good reason.
Your friend in Baseball,
Bads85
Dead Religions 