The Real Game Is Called Filling the Seats

They were sitting in the front office staff’s game-day meeting, and they were talking about . . . helium.

This was last Monday, and by the end of that night’s game, there would be the bat races and Dirtiest Car in the Parking Lot contest and the group that left because they don’t sell beer here. And, of course, Rally Gator, the Rally Gator Dance and the Rally Girls.

But all that would come later, after they solved the helium dilemma.

When you run a minor league team, you learn about these things. You learn about people and their dreams, about sales and marketing. You learn how to work a town and how to make a town work for you.

Welcome to Riverside, home of one of the Padres’ minor league affiliates. Class A baseball, the land of long days, cheap hotels and $11 a day in meal money.

And helium.

These guys ran out of the stuff during their last home stand, making it difficult for the Rally Girls, who deliver Red Wave Wishes--balloon bouquets--in the sixth inning. Fans can order these to be delivered to anyone in the ballpark, kind of like home flower delivery right there at a baseball game.

Anyway, a company had promised to deliver a new helium tank, but somehow, it never arrived. Undaunted, a Riverside staffer went right ahead and purchased another tank from the same company.

Which got quite a reaction during the meeting.

“You bought another one from them anyway?” someone asked.

“I didn’t want to alienate them,” came the reply. “They’re bringing a group in later.”

And so it goes.

The meeting was finished. But there were still five hours until game time. . . .

“I’ll walk you around,” Leanne Pagliai said. “We can talk as we walk.”

We headed for the Riverside clubhouse.

Knock, knock. “Hello?”

“Yeah, come on in,” a voice said.

“That’s what you have to do if you’re a female general manager,” Pagliai said.

We stepped inside.

Minor league clubhouses are supposed to be small and hot and smelly, sort of like a high school locker room. This one was cool and roomy and comfortable, sort of like a health spa.

“We took pictures,” Pagliai said. “We visited the Padres and Angels and Dodgers and took pictures of their clubhouses, and we decided what we liked, and we told the city and the architects.”

The Red Wave, by the way, plays at the Riverside Sports Center. They share the facility with UC Riverside, which is just up the road. There are 225 season-ticket holders and as of the beginning of the week, Riverside was averaging about 1,230 fans a game.

The Padres will tell you that some of the best facilities in Class A baseball are here. The players here will agree.

It wasn’t difficult to see why. The clubhouses are air-conditioned, the dugouts are large and there is plenty of foul territory.

As for the fans, there are some box seats as well as bleachers, and there is a picnic area down the first-base line, so close to the field that you can listen in on some conversations in the visitors’ dugout. You can sit at the tables and order dinner from waitresses. On weekends, they say, you can’t get a table without a reservation. There is even a television monitor at the concession stands.

It is Pagliai’s job to oversee a full-time staff of five and fill the 3,500 seats.

As far as she knows, Pagliai (pronounced “Pa-LIE”) is one of just two female general managers in the minors. The other is in charge of a team called the Gate City Pioneers.

It turns out that Pagliai, 31, graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in marketing and worked at IBM in Peoria, Ill. from 1980 until 1984. How she got involved in baseball, well, how can we do this gracefully?

She was dating a Peoria player--when Peoria still had a minor league team--and he was sent to Rohnert Park, near Santa Rosa. Pagliai had some vacation time and joined him there in 1985. She helped market the team and liked it. She asked her boss to help her get a job in baseball. She found one in Midland, Tex.--right about the time she was breaking up with her boyfriend, and right about the time he was released. She was in, he was out.

Ouch.

So Pagliai spent 1986 in Midland, was hired in San Bernardino in 1987 as an assistant general manager, and took over in Riverside in 1988, the year the Brett brothers--Bobby, George, Ken and John--purchased the Salinas club and moved it to Riverside. She met Bobby Brett in 1987 when she was working in San Bernardino, and when he offered her a role as a minority owner in Riverside, she quickly took it.

“Any time you can get ownership in a team,” she said, “you’ve got to jump at it.”

Even if there is no beer, which is one of her biggest problems. As far as Pagliai can tell, Riverside is the only dry ballpark in minor league baseball. The difficulty, she said, came when 16 local residents protested the club’s liquor license because, Pagliai said, “it would impact the quiet enjoyment of their neighborhood.” A judge upheld their protest, and Pagliai now has to work extra hard to bring fans in.

“It has an effect in two areas,” she said. “It affects bottom-line revenue and attendance. We don’t have the 21-to-40-year-old crowd other ballparks are getting.”

And to think that the $100,000 center field scoreboard was sponsored by Budweiser. Shhh.

At least nobody has protested the bat races. Two people are picked to race during each game. At the end of the sixth, they line up near the on-deck circle in front of the Riverside dugout. They lean over and push a bat to the ground with their foreheads. They run around the bat 10 times in this position, kind of like they’re trying to corkscrew the bats into the ground with their foreheads. Then they race to an area just behind third base.

Mostly, though, after spinning around the bats, they stumble, fall down or run sideways. One guy ran into the fence.

Just think what these people would do if they could buy beer.

These are the kinds of things Pagliai and her staff create to bring in the fans who want something more than just baseball. On game days, they work 13 hours.

“After San Bernardino, I swore I’d never do it again,” she said. “It’s a lot of work. But it can be a lot of fun. You meet a lot of people and learn an awful lot.”

The Padres supply the players. The Riverside staff takes care of the logistics.

“You never know what kind of a team we’re going to field,” Pagliai said. “And even if it’s the best team in the world, we’re not going to get people to come out for 72 nights. You want to put on as much of a show in the stands as on the field. And with no beer, we go after a Disneyland approach as much as possible.”

Seventy-two nights. That’s how many opportunities Pagliai and her crew get to lure enough fans to pay the bills.

So they run promotions and bring in a disc jockey from the No. 1 radio station in the area as a public address announcer. Between innings, you hear John Cougar Mellencamp, Prince and Bruce Springsteen.

And then they bring out Rally Gator, who does his Rally Gator Dance at the end of the third inning to his own rap song. The chorus:

“Shake your tail

Clap your hands

We’re going to do

The Rally Gator Dance

With no beer, it’s kind of like a cross between a picnic and a roller-skating party.

People come here, it seems, for several reasons. The baseball is decent, and it’s cheap. The top ticket is $4.50. You can get a full dinner--pork chop sandwich, potato salad, baked beans and a large drink--for $5.25.

Fans can get close enough to talk to the players right up until game time. The players, most of whom are in their early 20s, are high school friendly. The atmosphere is loose. There is a kind of surrealistic politeness in the stands. And it’s right in the neighborhood.

Sure, the big league Angels and the Dodgers play relatively nearby--the Padres, too--but by the time you get off work and fight the traffic, well, it’s a little late.

“You can be here in 15 or 20 minutes,” said Elaine Sokoloski, a middle-aged mother. “It takes an hour to get to Anaheim. And if the kids want to go to the bathroom or concession, no way would I let them. Here, I will.”

It has been quite a night for Sokoloski. Her family won a free pizza in the fourth inning. Her daughter was picked to go on the field for a softball throwing contest.

And, ta-da, she was the winner of the Dirtiest Car in the Parking Lot contest, for which the public address announcer informs us that she has won a free car wash coupon, a bucket and a sponge.

Understand, though, that there is a reason why her car is dirty. She is superstitious.

“I’ve blown head gaskets twice after I cleaned it,” she said.

Added her husband, Joe: “The second time was due to a faulty part. The darn thermostat . . . “

Moving right along . . . Where were we?

Beer. Tonight, there was a lady who was entertaining 13 of her national sales representatives. The group arrived at 6:15, discovered that they couldn’t buy beer and asked for their money back. They got it.

What can you do?