Florida baseball and Stricklin take notice

The saw about building the stadium for postseason refers to field dimensions. Attendance comes from building stands and amenities for fans for the entire season, not just regionals, nole/scUM an big SEC games. When there is good regular attendance, the big games will be full.

Sully's winning is the most important factor, but there are bugs to be worked out at the new place, but I think it will go well. The first season when the Mac was built averaged under 1000.

I see parking as the #1 long term issue, but general admission seating needs to be better. Sitting on the berm is a nice idea for kids, but not for frequent fans. There are plenty of options for future seating development, including a student zone.

Students haveve never been big on baseball and are propotionately weak supporters in every sport. Rather than Uber, they have a free bus system to the ballpark.

Finally, comparing regional hosts is a decent opportunity to point out UF has better shade than nearly every other stadium. I'm certain some people who actually attend games complain about shade, but given that there are so few games where shade matters- five this year, including regional- I assume many gripes come from others. FWIW the argument is moot for 20-50 years.

 

Exactly it. My thoughts about the Ag fields and parking would be an easy fix as long as they give the Ag Dept some other land to use.
More importantly is the berm seating. I believe it would be an easy fix, probably on some long term plan, to add concrete and bleacher seating down the first and third base lines a few extra sections to say half way from the bases to the corners. These would be general admission bleachers much like we had at the Mac and would add another purchase price amount to the tickets already offered. They could add shade screens like they have now to complete the look. Certainly all this can only be done if we do two things. One, start selling out the stadium more often than we do now. And two, add more parking in the nearby Ag fields south of the stadium. These concrete and bleacher sections would be a great chance to develop some student sections to the ballpark with special offers throughout the season, midweek games could be free other than FSU and half price tickets for all non SEC games on weekends. The key is get the students coming in the early season when we are winning so they will want to come for the SEC games.

 

AS I understand all student tix are free in the berm.

 

They could easily run shuttles from campus to the stadium. Perhaps from the Reitz Union?

 

Ag is by far the richest college at UF and owns square miles of land near Gvl and throughout the state. The existing citrus trees south of the ballpark are several years old, but I'm sure there are existing groves elsewhere to fill that tiny gap. The small Ag fields close to the ballpark are the only ones left in an area of campus that one was all Ag land.

The UF department that matters most is parking. They are constantly adding garages around campus that depend on fees. A new garage with entrances on the new Ballpark Way that feeds onto Archer Rd may already be in long term plans.

BTW Campus buses already run on Hull Rd next to the ballpark- taking students to the Rec Center and nearby dorms- but a special schedule direct to the ballpark on game nights would be a great addition.

Students always have had free admission to bsb, but it takes more than that to get them there. In the good old days, gathering along the fence at the top of the LF hill was a great place to harass visiting OFs and that's a good sort of color to add, but I believe the long term growth of attendance will come from Gvl people who come out with their kids. The berm is great for kids to hang out, but most parents want an adult place to sit. Free admission on weeknights for kids in bsb or sb uniforms will get the kids there and parents will follow. Most season tix holders started out buying single game general admission tix.

 

Did u catch some of the Home Runs the opponent deposited off me in the 70’s? Right over the hill about 60 yards

 

Now don't claim credit for serving up the Dave Winfield shot.

 

when I was a grad student at Ohio U they used to give tours to the places Mike Schmidt hit home runs

 

I don’t see an issue with parking. Even with dual softball/baseball games there is plenty of parking across Hull road around and behind Fifield Hall. If you know your way around the lot and buildings it is simple to get out after a game as well and the new road connecting to archer relieves traffic getting in and out.

That said having softball and baseball going on at same time is dumb and should be scheduled around. I’m sure there or quite a few people that would like to watch both.

 

I was there hoping for a ball but they kept flying over my head.

 

I thought I told the guys outside the fence to get deeper

 

Not me !!!

 

But I was already standing half way to Florida Field

 

Oh my

 

There needs to be some way fans can buy tickets owned by season ticket holders when they can't attend. They are the best seats and tend to show when the cameras are panning the stands. Plus they would be more enticing to buy and attend if the seats are good.

 

I did OK but not great at UF in terms of salary. But that was not why I was here. I spent most of my teaching career trying to raise the standard in the engineering college. I think that I helped.

 

In the mid 1950's there was a study done that is now called the Grintner Report. Yes, it is named after the guy that has a building named after him on the UF campus.

It changed engineering education in both the US and abroad. It said that we shouldn't just teach current practise but to teach engineers fundamentals so that they are more like scientists and have the ability to learn going forward. Hence there was a core curricullum that all engineers took based on the engineering sciences. The idea was that it would give engineering students a broad background to help them adapt to the emerging and changing challenges going forward.

In the 1980's things changed. Mostly it was due to the State Legislature mandating that degrees were limited to 120 credit hours. I think that engineering degrees bargained to 128 and Chem E got even a few more hours. Now engineering s=disciplines needed to cut hours and because of $'s they wanted to cut hours outside their own departments.

Now electrical engineering students know nothing of themodyanamics so they know nothing about why batteries die. Heck, they know almost nothing about analog solidstate or tube circuit design either. And nothing about heat transfer for cooling circuits. That requires fluid mechanics first and they don't take that. At the same time mechanical engineers learn "baby" circuits and hence are not allowed to take more advanced courses. And they have no idea how electric motors work or are controlled.

And don't give me that argument I got back then that there will be design teams and not everyone needs to know everything. That is true, but the leader of the team needs to have knowledge across the whole spectrum. Where was that guy coming from?

 

The UF AD has an app for that, and then there’s StubHub/Ticketmaster/etc.

Doesn’t really matter if said season ticket holders are too lazy to list their tickets, or list them at laughable prices nobody is willing to pay.

 

Usually I give mine away to friends. Especially friends with kids. And my seats are pretty good.

Back in the day of paper tickets if I had two for a basketball game I would look for a parent (usually a dad, but not always) with a child (usually a son, but not always) looking to buy two. I would give them the tickets: 4th Row of Level 1 before the renovation and then 2nd Row of Level 1 after the renovation behind the Gator second half endline.

It is just paying it forward.

Many years ago I was visiting family in Milwaukee and my BIL and his son wanted to go see a ball game. They are Cubs fans, nobody is perfect, but also baseball fans so we took off to Milwaukee County Stadium and were standing in line to buy tickets. A guy walks up to us and asks if we needed tickets. He just gave us three tickets in the first row behind the Brewers dugout.

Of course he was sitting in an adjacent seat.

After many efforts he allowed us to buy him something. It might have been a hotdog.

Like I said, I am paying it forward.