Maryland Business

By: Liz Farmer

Talk about a commitment to customer service — the management at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen wasn’t going to let a little thing like a power outage stop the game from proceeding after last Friday evening’s thunder storm.

The storm, described in a press release as “howling wind blowing the rain side to side” abruptly stopped at 5 p.m., two hours before the scheduled 7:05 p.m. start for the IronBirds, one of Maryland’s five minor league baseball teams. But while the field tarp was removed and the grounds crew readied it for play, the power outage lasted long into the night.

The night staff walked around “using a bullhorn to inform to the many groups of fans patiently waiting for the game to begin about what was going on and when the game may start,” the release said.

The team had rented three giant generators in the early evening to power the lights and — of major concern — the restrooms. (Ripken Stadium has automatic flush toilets that don’t function without electricity.) At about 8:40 p.m. the lights kicked in over the field, drawing applause and cheers from the hearty fans still in attendance.

While the field was lit, the scoreboard (also electric) was a different story: that was drawn on a giant whiteboard and updated throughout the contest. The crew held up signs showing the balls, strikes and outs, each person wearing a t-shirt with a B, S, and O on it so the fans knew what each number they held stood for, according to the release.

The press box also functioned at a very limited level and a small generator powered the public address microphone, visiting radio and flood light.

The evening epitomizes one of the great things about minor league baseball that I wrote about last summer: it’s just good, old-fashioned (in this case literally) family fun and run by folks whose priority is entertaining the fans.

But thank goodness also for minor league baseball’s simplicity — can you imagine what would have happened at Oriole Park if the power had gone out like this?

And by the way, the Ironbirds won, 4-1.