During their first homestand of the year, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders enjoyed their largest Opening Week attendance since 2019.<\/p>\n
That was music to Shawn Reilly\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n
With the Yankees<\/a>\u2019 Triple-A team back home at PNC Field for the next two weeks, the team\u2019s new president and general manager hopes fans continue to show up to the ballpark. They\u2019re scheduled to begin a series tonight against the Rochester Red Wings before entertaining the Buffalo Bisons from April 28th to May 3rd.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe<\/a> is scheduled to continue his rehab assignment in the series against Rochester. This will be his first series in a RailRiders uniform since his 22-game stint to close out the 2022 campaign, just before his promotion to the big league for Opening Day 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you put on a good show for them, people will come out,\u201d Reilly said at the team\u2019s Media Day on March 25th. \u201cA lot of times the harsh winters lead to great seasons for baseball teams because people miss sitting outside.\u201d<\/p>\n A native of Niagara Falls, New York, Reilly began his career in baseball with the Niagara Falls Rapids in 1992, the western New York-based Jamestown Jammers in 1993, and two seasons as general manager of the New York Mets<\/a>\u2019 Florida spring training facility in Port St. Lucie. He then was the senior vice president at Core Communities in Port St. Lucie for 15 years.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In 2011, Reilly returned to baseball and the Empire State as the founder and co-owner of the New York Boulders. The team started in the independent Can-Am League and won the championship in 2014 and lost in the final in 2016 and 2017. In October 2019, the Can-Am League merged with the Frontier League, and that\u2019s where the team currently plays.<\/p>\n During his tenure, Reilly helped build the Boulders into a flagship franchise. He did it by creating a great family experience at games. Clover Stadium is 29 miles from Yankee Stadium, so the Boulders had to differentiate ways to get people to come to their games.<\/p>\n \u201cOver time, we found out that our ballpark \u2013 and most ballparks \u2013 70 percent of the people come out because it\u2019s affordable family entertainment,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cSo we focused on the mascots and the fun things like the playgrounds and the cotton candy. That\u2019s really why people come; good baseball is just a bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n Coming to the RailRiders this season, Reilly has that same mentality. Every night they\u2019re putting on a show and he wants people to come out and see the show.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the team has added some new promotions, amenities, food items as well as tweaked some things. \u201cI\u2019m coming in and have a fresh set of eyes, so there\u2019s a bunch of things over time I\u2019m going to look at,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cThis is a beautiful ballpark, but having a fresh set of eyes can freshen it up a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Reilly is proud of the massive new video scoreboard that spans nearly 3,000 square feet \u2014 1,876 square feet larger than the previous board. It has interactive software so fans can text and put themselves on the videoboard.<\/p>\n Starting at the end of May, to make game times more fan-friendly, they will move from 6:35 p.m. local starts to 7:05 p.m. on weeknights. Sunday first-pitch times were switched to 1:35 p.m. Already hosting firework shows following Friday night games, Reilly added them after Saturday games beginning in mid-May. As a result, those start times have been moved from 4 p.m. to 6:35 p.m.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to increase our reach because it\u2019s still a small market. It\u2019s one of the smallest markets in Triple-A; I thought I read 22nd out of 30,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cSo one way I wanted to try to expand our reach is to have Saturday fireworks and see if we can get more people to drive in from Middletown (NY) and western New Jersey. I think they will.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Parking was lowered from $8 to $5 and cash is accepted. Reilly\u2019s reasoning: Rather than fumbling for change or using a card machine, you can get people in faster. And kids can run the bases after every game, not just following Sunday matinees.<\/p>\n Having a good team should help draw people, too, with players like Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a>, Spencer Jones and top pitching prospects Carlos Lagrange and Elmer Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n \u201cFans don\u2019t have to be diehard baseball fans to know who these people are. These are legitimate big-league players,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate to have the Yankees as our parent club. People know they load up on signing major leaguers\u00a0 and many times they end up in Scranton. I would dare say this team in Scranton is probably one of the best teams we\u2019ve ever had here.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, Reilly believes fans will see more Yankees on rehab assignments coming to Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre rather than Somerset.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cI think this year our schedules don\u2019t align. When they (Somerset) are home, we\u2019re on the road and when we\u2019re home, they\u2019re on the road,\u201d Reilly said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t deny the geography. Somerset is closer. If (the players) have a place in New York City, they can sleep in their own bed. I get it. But I think this year because of the way the schedule lines up, if someone has to rehab and Somerset is on the road, I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019re coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Volpe played at Somerset this past week with Scranton up in Syracuse, and now that the Patriots are hitting the road for Binghamton, he\u2019s joining the RailRiders at PNC Field rather than going on a minor-league road trip.<\/p>\n The RailRiders (10-10) limp into the series against Rochester, having dropped three straight and four of five in the series last week in Syracuse. The series finale was postponed by inclement weather and rescheduled for Wednesday, June 3rd, as part of a doubleheader.<\/p>\n Jones batted .313 (5-for-16) in five games with two doubles, two home runs, four RBIs, three runs, two walks, six strikeouts and two stolen bases. He remains tied for the International League lead in RBIs with 21.<\/p>\n Ernesto Martinez Jr. hit .364 (4-for-11) in four games with two home runs, four RBIs and three runs. On the mound, Rodr\u00edguez earned his first Triple-A win, pitching 5.2 scoreless innings on two hits, two walks, six strikeouts and one hit-batsman in a 4-1 triumph April 15.<\/p>\n Rochester (11-10), the Washington Nationals<\/a>\u2019 Triple-A affiliate, is coming off a six-game series split with Buffalo. They\u2019ll be led by Dylan Crews<\/a>, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft made famous by his LSU teammate Paul Skenes<\/a>, who went first. Sent down by the new front office in D.C. to refine his game to start the year, Crews is hitting .284\/.388\/.418 in 80 PA on the young season. Also on the Red Wings\u2019 roster is old friend Andr\u00e9s Chaparro, who was in the Yankees\u2019 organization from 2015 through 2023, culminating in a 25-homer season for the RailRiders before moving on to the Senior Circuit. Two weeks ago, the RailRiders took four of six games from the Red Wings at ESL Ballpark in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During their first homestand of the year, the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders enjoyed their largest Opening Week attendance since 2019.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[68437,68955,77266,51789,77264,4606,22146,68101,69789,178,180,179,77263,29829,77265,42344],"class_list":["post-172195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-anthony-volpe","tag-buffalo-bisons","tag-dylan-crews","tag-jasson-dominguez","tag-new-york-boulders","tag-new-york-mets","tag-paul-skenes","tag-railriders","tag-rochester-red-wings","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-shawn-reilly","tag-washington-nationals","tag-worcester-red-sox","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}