VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community
Friendships begin based on numerous circumstances. Many are created because of similar interests and hobbies. For example, being part of the same sports team or maybe being a member of the same academic club. Other friendships are formed based on proximity or what neighborhood you grew up in. Whatever the reason, having a good solid friendship is a wonderful thing.We believe Podcasts are very similar to friendships. They are many times created by a few people who have common interests and share a similar vision. They are generally formed to help “inform” others about a variety of topics and subject matter. The question many Podcasters ask themselves is….why me/us? With so many options to choose from as a listener, what makes one Podcast better than another? We believe it all begins with….a good host or pair of hosts! That is exactly how The VIP Café Show came to fruition. Two friends, Greg Smith and Brian Blasko had a conversation while enjoying a cigar on a cool crisp January evening and the rest as they say…is history.The VIP Café Show was created to inform, educate and entertain listeners from the great city of Youngstown, OH. Although The VIP Café Show listeners reach far beyond the Youngstown area, the primary focus of the show is to highlight local “Youngstowners” and to hear their story. The Podcast also dives into a variety of fascinating topics besides Youngstown. Greg and Brian love discussing leadership, public speaking, customer care, team building, and life in general. They are always fascinated by what makes people tick and how people became (or are becoming) the person they are today! The VIP Café Show is a fun and informative program that engages the audience with every interview, conversation, and dialog that transpires.
VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community
E39: The VIP Café Show from Art School to the Diamond - Matt Thompson's Journey to Minor League Baseball Magic
From the canvas to the diamond, Matt Thompson's career arc is anything but ordinary. Join us as we uncover the delightful detours that whisked him from his art school ambitions straight into the bustling world of sports communication as the assistant general manager of the Scrappers, Niles, Ohio's cherished minor league baseball team. Matt's story is a vivid tapestry woven with humorous tales from his early days in radio broadcasting, balancing the art of play-by-play with the science of stat-keeping, and the organic growth that led him from intern to assistant GM.
Imagine a league where the stakes couldn't be higher, and every pitch could be the one that catches a scout's attention—that's the MLB Draft League. In our latest episode, Matt Thompson gives us an insider's view of this unique platform for aspiring pros, where draft-eligible players lay it all on the line. We also celebrate the perseverance of athletes who, undrafted, continue to chase their dreams, including the story of one player who, after showcasing his skills internationally, signed with the Los Angeles Angels. This discussion will leave you rooting for those on the precipice of their major league dreams.
As the sun prepares to hide behind the moon in a rare celestial ballet, the Scrappers plan to turn a solar eclipse into a homerun for fan engagement. Matt shares how minor league baseball, with its family-centered approach and deep community ties, offers an experience that big-league games often can't match. We delve into the heartwarming ways the Scrappers have become integral to the Youngstown community, from the roar of the crowd to the local pride that fuels the team. So, grab your mitt and a hot dog, and settle in for a heartening glimpse into the world of minor league baseball, where every game is about so much more than just the score.
https://www.mlbdraftleague.com/mahoning-valley
Welcome to the VIP Cafe Show. We are here today at that lovely Havana house having some American coffee. I'm having a mocha and having a nice smoke and enjoying the time here.
Speaker 2:Those are people like doing back in this VIP cafe.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Debbie tell me it's almost like baseball time, right, they're starting to warm up, they're starting to practice, you know.
Speaker 2:So much goes into before the, before the big moments on the field, so much yeah. So our next guest says he's been super busy. It's like an honor to even have him here with us today.
Speaker 1:So we got that.
Speaker 2:All right, today we have Matt Thompson, assistant general manager of the Scrappers, which is based in Niles, ohio, and here he is with us today. Literally, this guy. I've been trying to get him for a couple of weeks now. So yeah, so finally we're here to talk baseball and politics Now, I'm just kidding, no just based depends on how you look at baseball.
Speaker 1:One of the same. I do want them to call time out, walk up in the stands and say play ball, and say what are you doing? You go, obviously it's better up here.
Speaker 2:Some teams just get more home runs than others. That's the way it works, right.
Speaker 1:So how we start this man is basically you start from conception and go forward. Let us know what happened.
Speaker 3:Okay, In the beginning there was God and baseball.
Speaker 2:God, and baseball yeah.
Speaker 3:So thanks for having me guys.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming. Tell us a little bit about yourself and honestly, start with high school. Nobody ever starts from high school, but that's where we grind our teeth.
Speaker 2:You're right. You're right and decide which direction we want to go in life.
Speaker 3:It's funny because all the way from actually I'll even go back to elementary school, up until I want to say about my junior year I thought I wanted to go to art school or something like that graphic design, something like that I was always really into art and I am not entirely sure what it was, but at some point maybe late junior year, early senior year in high school when I started looking at colleges, I decided that writing was maybe a little bit more for me, writing something more like newspapers or magazines, or writing for TV or radio or something like that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:So I ended up going to school for communications and my junior year in college summer after my junior year at college I was going to school in Williamsport, home of the Little League World Series, and they also had a minor league team there, and the team there was looking for somebody from the communications department at my school to do radio for them that summer. And so they came to the comm department. Three of us and I had never done anything like that before, three of us submitted tapes. I actually I recorded a Yankees Orioles game off TV and then I went back and I sat in my room and I watched it and sat there with a tape recorder and called the game, watching it on TV.
Speaker 3:So three of us submitted tapes and I ended up getting the job, and then I found out it was because the first two guys turned it down. Yeah, that's what they told me. That was what they told me. So I got it, I got the job and I went out. And I did such a good job that the second year around they did not ask me to come back and in truth I will say this they probably made the right decision.
Speaker 3:My radio announcing was it was fine, I think it. I think it was, it was doable, but back then. So this was 2002, so this was before. You had a bunch of guys and Dedicated people in the press box and stuff doing all the stats in real time, and it was all. They were all hooked up to the internet and it was all going back through automatically.
Speaker 3:What they needed me to do was call the games and keep the book and after the games, go back and get the stats from the press box, get everything wrapped up and then get those down to the clubhouse so our guys could fax it back to Pittsburgh Before we went back to the hotel room and it was all. It wasn't all you'd done in real time, uh-huh. So I was not very efficient at that Because I had never done it before and I'm not a big stat guy and I that was pretty slow at that. So they made the correct decision. And it's funny because I get the guy who was my boss still. He still works there. So we joke about that every now and then.
Speaker 2:But and this was in New York. No, so this is in Williamsport, yeah okay, well, so I wasn't sure where Williamsport was and they so then.
Speaker 3:But I decided after I graduated I had a really good time being from the middle of nowhere. Where I'm from, we weren't really around any minor league teams and I had never really been exposed to minor league baseball I was like this is, this is a lot of fun, this is really accessible to people, and I'd been to major league ballparks and I was like that's a lot of fun, but this is a lot more. You can really be into things and stuff like that. So I decided I wanted to try to get into that. So I sent out a bunch of resumes and after the year, after I graduated and the scrappers gave me a call and and did a couple of phone interviews and I came out here as an intern in 2004. So I was the promo guy, I was the on-field host during the games, but then I did a lot of. I Did a lot of things with, like, our kids club and going out and doing scrappy Appearances and things like that and then in game.
Speaker 2:Did you ever dress like scrappy?
Speaker 3:Oh, what are you talking about? I took scrappy the dog out. If that's what you mean, scrappy the dog, okay, the real dog. Oh, people don't dress like.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's, right Okay.
Speaker 1:He pens there are places in Vegas you can do that. Yeah, we're not talking.
Speaker 3:Sometimes might have fake mascots, but you have a real he's real.
Speaker 2:I'm giving him a five, a couple fives here and there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually he meant to say hi when he saw you or when I saw you, so I did that. And then they hired me on full-time at the end of at the end of that year, but not up here. There wasn't anything full-time up here. The ownership group at the time had just purchased a team down in Charleston, west Virginia, from a company that had bought the team just a couple years earlier and they said oh yeah, if you don't build us a new stadium, we're moving the team.
Speaker 3:Oh and they really thought they were gonna move the team and then the city of Charleston called their bluff and said okay. So then they were like, oh crap, oh Wow. They didn't want to be in Charleston was what they wanted. They wanted to move to a completely different market. So our ownership group at the time bought the bought, bought that team. So I went down and helped open up a brand new stadium in in 2005 and then at the end of that season I came back up here. So I've been with the team full-time since 2006 Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait a minute. So the scrappers that they own other teams.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that ownership group at the time owned about owned three teams and then at the end of the 2008 season we were sold to HWS baseball and there were, I think, three teams in In that at the time when we got purchased, it was us, modesta the team out in Modesto, the nuts and then the Mobile Bay Bears and Right now, within our group, it's us and the Dayton dragons. Okay, yeah, Interesting.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that. I thought so. I thought Kofaro owned the scrapers.
Speaker 3:Nope, they own. They own the property, okay and everything. So we pay rent, but we are our owners. Separate them to yeah, our owner lives up in the Massachusetts.
Speaker 2:Got it Okay. Okay, so are you directly involved in getting the players, in recruiting Players. Now what does the assistant GM do?
Speaker 3:as far as for a, and this actually changed a few years ago too, so now it's even more convoluted than it used to be. What it used to be from our inception in 99, through what would have been the 2020 season. We were an affiliate for the Cleveland Indians, now guardians, and and we were the. We were in short season baseball, so we were actually and we're in the same league as that Williamsport team that I was talking about earlier. Wow, the New York Penn League had been in existence since 1939 and it was we were the short season. It's the first professional stop on the ladder For guys coming in who get drafted and signed and then move their way on.
Speaker 3:Okay, ladder after the 2020 season, major League Baseball did some restructuring and and eliminated the short season level and in Technical terms, we actually did get eliminated as we existed at that time. But Major League Baseball created what is now called the MLB draft league, which we started up in in 2021 and now, rather than having rather than getting guys coming in from an affiliated Club or being an affiliated club, getting guys come in from a parent club to move their way on up the first half of the season, we actually Get guys draft eligible guys Meaning guys that have gone to American schools by the junior, their junior and senior year to come in and play for us, or they can also be in Just out of high school, okay, so that means they're draft eligible, okay, and they'll come in and they'll duke it out for about six or eight weeks, depending on when the draft is, because that kind of floats now with the major league all-star game and They'll come and they'll play and they'll get looks from scouts and stuff, and if they Get drafted and sign, then they will leave. If they don't get drafted and they still have college eligibility, left, they, their best course of action is to go back to school, try to kill it, their senior year, do really well and hopefully get a look again and they can either decide whether they want to come back Again that following year or, if they feel like they did well enough their senior year to, to just Do well enough to get drafted. Where they want to get drafted, they can just enter the draft Now. If they don't get drafted and signed and they don't have any eligibility left, then the second half of the season they can come back and start getting paid like we're an independent team and they will continue to get looks from scouts, because now the draft, instead of being 40 rounds, is only 20. Prior to 2020 it was it was a 40 round draft. Okay, now there's only 20 rounds. So teams are still potentially looking for guys after the fact so they can still play and get exposure and Potentially get picked up signed as an undrafted free agent after the fact.
Speaker 3:We even had a couple years ago I Think it was January of 2022. I believe we had a guy no, excuse me, it's January 2023 because he played for us in 22 a guy who played for us the second half of the year. He was a pitcher, didn't get drafted, didn't get signed, but then he went on to play fall ball somewhere else and Actually he went on to play in the world baseball classic that year for China. Wow, his mother was of Chinese descent, so he was eligible to play for them and he played, played for them in the world baseball classic and then he ended up getting signed by Anaheim at the end, or Los Angeles the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at the toward the end of January 2023. So those guys will still keep getting looks. Now it's a little bit more convoluted, as if the baseball developmental system wasn't already convoluted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds but the energy has to be different because those, all those players are playing for a spot now, rather than they're being Sent down to rehab or they are in in a sense there.
Speaker 3:They are hungrier now because they have not yet been drafted. Wow, now, even the guys that we had who were with Cleveland, they had been drafted, but they had to work their way up. But the sense was, already I've already at least gotten drafted. And they think that now these guys are they're starting from ground zero. They got it, they got to get drafted and then they got a. That that's the start there is.
Speaker 1:I've got to ask this question because he said it and I'm not yeah, my mind works. Okay, dayton, just gonna be an eclipse in April, full eclipse. Yeah and Dayton's in the pathway. So you're gonna do anything with the field, with the, with the fans for the full eclipse?
Speaker 3:Well, so we totality I assume they're going to, because they actually do really great with their promotions. Now, business wise, we don't really. I now I think our VP does, jordan, but I we don't really have much contact with them. They run just completely separately, but they do a really nice job with their promo. So I am going to go ahead and guess that.
Speaker 1:I would tip them off on that one, because that's a Super that's a great number one people love you for doing it, so they could go put at least put their big thing out, sit in the field and watch the get totality in the baseball field and then give them a package deal or something.
Speaker 3:I haven't looked at their schedule so I don't know if they.
Speaker 1:I don't feel it's an all day and they can use the stadium, but that'd be huge that would be huge is eclipse.
Speaker 2:The thing that you have to have special glasses.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, you know why is it's all blacked out. But the corona around the Sun gets really super bright and it actually gets even brighter than even if you just look up at the Sun for a sec. I really Physics, I don't know. Okay, it's the stuff. That's over.
Speaker 2:Steps a little bit over there, glasses. Yeah safety glasses.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's why I work in baseball and not an MIT, or that would be really smart, then man for sure, because they could have the glasses available.
Speaker 1:It could be like a safe, you know place to so talk about the interaction with the fans and that, because it's always fun to go to Scrappers game. They're really. It's like the Savannah bananas are coming out now, but the your type of baseball has been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it has, and the Savannah bananas and they are becoming really popular and that is so. That's a lot more like a yeah, it's hard on globe Trotters yes, type of deal yeah, and. I'm the interaction with the fans with your levels a lot better ours is they do a great job and I don't want to just get free hot dogs. I don't want to do sometimes right.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying that if people want a great experience, grappers are not major league baseball.
Speaker 3:When you go to major league baseball, it's really almost like a coat and tie event versus when you go to a it's more when I tell people especially if they have kids but but not even necessarily, but especially if they have kids they're starting to get old enough where they maybe Want to start taking them out to stuff like that and I'll say don't take them to Cleveland, don't take them to Pittsburgh. You're gonna spend a lot of money and you have no idea if your kids even gonna be interested beyond the first inning or whatever. Bring him to a scrappers game. Then, if they get excited enough about that, then as they start to get a little bit older, then maybe take them up to the Guardians or down to the pirates or whatever. You can start them out here. But you can also bring your kids to the scrappers yeah, five, six, seven times a summer and not break the bank and what are the deals.
Speaker 1:Let's do the website. Let's talk about how to get tickets, let's talk about good packages, and they connect real quick.
Speaker 2:They have so many community events. They connect to the community so well. Like you said, let's talk about that Austin town, like teachers and they have Austin town night. Or I'm talking about some of the past. I don't know what you have coming up, but the fire taking our company out there.
Speaker 1:We have a company picnic. But yeah, you talk about all the things you can do, how to get in contact.
Speaker 3:So, if you go to MV, scrappers, comm or follow us on Facebook, a lot of times and it's funny, I don't know, there's a, I'm sure there's a I, somebody who understands this a lot more I think women, particularly moms, find out more about us on Facebook. Men go straight to our website. Really, men go straight to a website for something. Moms find out about stuff to do with their families specifically on Facebook Typically. Yeah, it's an interesting thing like that, but we try to do a little bit of both. We're also out there on Twitter, which I refuse to call X, and you know Instagram, but yes, you can find us on all those platforms and we're always trying to do different promos.
Speaker 3:We've got things that you can do full season ticket stuff, but you can also just do partial stuff. You can get packages with us that are flexible, that are undated, especially with families, because now and I don't have kids, but I see it a lot with our VP and our GM They've got kids and they're in sports and when I was growing up, I was on one baseball team and we played and then the days we didn't have games or practice, we were off. Now you got a kid who's on a baseball team and he's also on two other baseball teams simultaneously. He's on the Wreck League team and then he's on the travel team, and then he's on the other team somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Jordan's son is on three different baseball teams at any given point. Heather, our GM, her daughter her older daughter plays basketball. I think she plays AAU in the summer but then is also doing she plays track or she runs track. I believe she actually does a hammer and shot in discus. But so they're doing all these kind of all these kind of different things and I think family's times are taking up a whole lot more. But still, if you're just in the Mahoning Valley and you don't have to go all the way to Cleveland you don't have it's a lot easier to come out and catch a quick scrappers game and then do other stuff and it doesn't have to be a huge event.
Speaker 1:For example.
Speaker 3:It's cheaper than a movie. If you break it down on a lot of nights, it really is Okay.
Speaker 2:the prices are different per night and per promotion.
Speaker 3:Really, the only one that's different is the Thursday nights the buck nights, typically, unless you get for specific things, so like on buck nights, for example, the GA seats are just a dollar, the bleacher seats but generally our most expensive non-premium so not food included ticket is 15 bucks.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But this year one of the things we did is that on our standard nights because unfortunately we're facing the same thing as everybody else so we did have to bring tickets up a little bit for everything. But what we did do is we brought up all the other ticket prices a dollar, except for general admission. We took them down actually to seven, okay. So now you can start on a non-buck night, okay, just on a general night you can come out and get a bleacher seat for seven bucks.
Speaker 2:That's not bad, really.
Speaker 3:But then if you take our absolute most expensive seat per night sitting down in the Diamond Club, that's where you got the all you can eat. You got a server taking care of you throughout the game.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 3:If you just buy that just single game, it's 32 bucks. That's your seat and food, and food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cheaper than Chick-fil-A Sorry, chick-fil-a, but it is and definitely cheaper than a Panera.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, definitely cheaper than a Panera.
Speaker 3:That's your seat and your food and you get entertainment. Yeah and you, yep, you got your entertainment.
Speaker 2:Okay, now you guys had some sort of something with parking. If you had a certain car, then you get free parking or something. Do you still do that? That was years ago.
Speaker 3:I believe that contract is in, so I can say, yes, courtesy of Toyota-Foreign. If you drive a Toyota, got it okay, the parking is free, okay. But then we do other nights too, where we've got different sponsors are doing something. They might have some tickets. We might have tickets out in the community for things like that, typically on weeknights too, but there's always something going on. We're doing the military Wednesdays again, so on Wednesdays any current and former military with proper ID can get two free upper box seat tickets.
Speaker 3:All kinds of different stuff that we try to do. And then also, like you mentioned, your company coming out. That's another thing that we try to tell people. I really hammer this too, because and I know you like to talk the business side of things, so this is the thing I always like to tell people. I love it when people want to talk about their families coming out.
Speaker 3:But one of the things that I always feel gets lost a little bit in that is companies using us as a business asset and bringing your employees out and showing them a good time in a convenient, inexpensive, not super far away place to get to, but also bringing your clients out. You've got. You can either do a picnic. But we've also got our suite level as well and I have been so happy to see my team actually takes care of the suite level during the games and I have been so happy to see businesses come out year after year. It will bring their clients out and really foster those relationships upstairs in the suite level and be able to have some one-on-one or one-on-a-few, a little bit more intimate atmosphere with them and bring them out without having to take them all the way up to Cleveland, without having to take them all the way down to Pittsburgh, and have a really nice time and foster those business relationships. We can do that here, you don't have to go far away, and you don't have to spend exorbitant amounts of money to do that.
Speaker 1:Well, there's two things that humans do well Right Play games and eat together, right? Oh, interesting, that's when we lower our defenses and we become yeah, when you're laughing talking, engaging yeah, I mean drinking bread, big chicken and playing games. So you get both.
Speaker 2:I need to come work for your company, greg. Well, it's the truth.
Speaker 1:I mean no no, you're right, absolutely. But people look forward to that. They ask me are we going to Scrappers again this year? You know we're going to do it First. We are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome and it does keep your money local.
Speaker 3:That is a nice thing too is trying to keep that local. We try to do as much as we can as far as the stuff that we buy locally and so far as it's available locally. So we do definitely always try to do that and we like to consider ourselves a community asset and also just that. As far as the Mahoning Valley starting to make a little bit of a comeback in the amount of time that I've lived here and starting to see those kinds of things and starting to attract new businesses coming into the area and things like that, and as that continues to grow, thriving professional sports team is an indicator of a healthy economy and a quality of life that is going to make those companies want to come here, going to make them want to say yes, we can also attract quality talent to be able to come here and work for us in this area as well, and so we like to consider ourselves a component of that also.
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. What's your favorite major league team?
Speaker 3:So I am a fan of the. I grew up lifelong fan of the hated New York Yankees. I grew up watching them on TV with my dad. So I and I do like to remind everybody so I was born in 1981. So I do like to remind all the angry Cleveland and Pittsburgh fans out here that for the first about 13 years of my life the Yankees actually were trash. So I did not jump on the bandwagon in 96. They were garbage until I was about 14 or 15.
Speaker 2:So they were terrible. I lived in New York city and I went to Yankees game and the Mets game and they were extremely different feels and both of them were incredible to go to. But I can't help but hear the. Whenever I hear the Yankees, I can't help but think of Costanza and Seinfeld.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, you know the truth of it is. I think when the Yankees and the Dodgers are good, baseball's doing well, it is good for baseball, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cardinals, the as much as.
Speaker 3:I hate to say it. The Red Sox yeah, you do want those on the other side of things actually. So I'm a Washington fan as far as football goes, and I it pains me to say this football's good when the Cowboys are good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You need a villain, and they're everybody's villain. But yeah the Yankees are everybody's villain in baseball, so you do need that. You need the villain.
Speaker 1:You need the ideology. Yeah, yeah, when those teams are. Oh yeah, they make a difference.
Speaker 3:It's best when they're both good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure, wow. Okay, in the time that you've worked for the Scrappers then do you have the? Is there a significant or memorable season that really made an impact, like whether it was underdogs, like coming ahead, or just maybe the players that you've gotten to interact with and I know each season probably has something very special, so I'm not asking you to negate any of your experiences, but is there any significant or memorable moments?
Speaker 3:They're my first year the Euro's an intern actually was a really interesting one because it was the first and only year that we won the championship. We didn't win the championship that year and I was actually lucky enough to actually get a ring. I was one of only a couple interns to get a ring, because they only bought them for the interns that ended up getting hired on full time by the organization, so that was a lot of fun. I got to go out. We actually we didn't win it here, we won it out in against the team in Tri City that was out in Troy, new York, which is right outside of Albany. So that was exciting. Also, the year that we hosted the All-Star game, so that was 2012. And that was really exciting the Valley, really and I had been to All-Star Games in this league and the way they did them.
Speaker 3:They did a fair amount of pomp and circumstance for the visiting executives coming in, but we decided to. I guess I'd be lying if I said it wasn't out of a desire to actually make money off the thing, because it was expensive to put on and we're like well, if we're gonna do this thing, we need to do it, right, right. So we did events that they did not do prior to us doing it. We did events actually for the community to get them to come in. You can buy tickets to this event. You can buy tickets to this event. You can come and do this because we said we're gonna bring this here. We can't tell our fans, yeah, we're having the All-Star game here, but really the game is the only thing that you can come to.
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of boring, you know?
Speaker 3:then why would anybody get excited about coming to it? So we did a really great job and our team really did a nice job of coming together and being real successful with that and having a great time, to the point where we actually the teams that hosted it after us were like oh wow, we can actually make this a really successful money-making venture and get our fans into it too. It was huge.
Speaker 2:You can't really let the way.
Speaker 3:We did. Yeah, it was great, Because we were looking at the other ones. We were like, why are you guys, do you guys not do this? I love it.
Speaker 2:Out of this area of greatness yet again.
Speaker 1:You have any closing questions?
Speaker 3:I do have one more thing. I do have one more statement that I do want to mention. Good, good, honestly. That was coming off the canceled 2020 year and coming back in 2021. And we just we weren't sure how it was gonna go. We weren't technically affiliated anymore we're still. We were major league affiliated, but we weren't specifically team affiliated and we weren't sure how it was gonna go. We weren't sure how fans were gonna react. Coming back out at that time and everything, and our sponsors and our fans to help us not just in 2021, I guess I should say even these last three seasons but really helped us come back strong. Ours is a very it's a very expensive operation to run and without the support of the sponsors and the fans, we can't do it. And coming back, coming back off of that, it could have been dicey and the Valley really came together and really helped keep us in things, and so I guess I would say that one coming back. We're really appreciative of being able to see that.
Speaker 2:You're right, cause COVID really knocked some people out. Yeah, it did Down too far. Yeah, that's really cool and to acknowledge it really is the people that really the community and the relationship, the relationships, the community, people believing in this area, this region. It's so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:We'll get you Young Son's awesome. It really is, it is, it is, it is. I have friends that come here. I say we have every religion here, we have all the cuisine here, we all get along. I say we have each other's back. We might fight like cats and dogs, but we have a great back and it's a great place. It is a great place to raise a family, to grow up and literally learn a good work ethic.
Speaker 2:Absolutely 100% Yep. And the history the more you find out about the history here is incredible. One last question, if I have a minute is you coming in from? Anybody who knows Greg and anybody who knows me knows that in different ways, we're both very committed to this area, local region, the greatness in others. You coming from the outside in, you coming from New York City or not? New York City, new York to Youngstown what? What do you? I know you've been here for a while so you've accustomed, but what do you? Have you noticed anything different or special? Or sometimes people don't see it. I'm not trying to set up a pat on our own back. I feel like that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Why would you laugh? Yeah, just say it, though, why would you laugh?
Speaker 2:What makes this region different from others that you may have experienced? Wow 30s.
Speaker 3:And I'll say this too, which is an interesting thing Not only did I stay and it is very unusual, really, it's unusual for anybody to stay in the same job for 20 years. Nowadays, yes, but especially in the baseball industry and particularly at a level where we are, turnover is really the norm. Wow. And our four? So our VP, our GM and then our two assistant GMs myself and our other assistant GM we've been there for 20 years and that is very unusual and I would say the just the consistent support of the Valley has been very helpful in helping us continue to be successful.
Speaker 3:And being in a place where the cost of living obviously you could make the argument that maybe that's not great, but it is definitely there are a lot of. When I was starting out, I came here and I was able to have the job that I have and you don't get into baseball for the money. I was able to have the job that I have and have a decent apartment and be able to buy my groceries and pay my bills and have a decent place to live, and go out occasionally and stuff like that. If you're working for a major league team or even a minor league team in a much, much bigger market. You can't you really can't do that, and things were very, things were very reasonable here, and that was nice.
Speaker 3:Also, I will say this, so that one of the things that I have always noticed and when I grew up, and as we were talking before we started recording I'm from the middle of nowhere, so if I wanted to do something, I had to go. I had to drive quite a distance Around here. One of the things I've noticed is that, actually, people are insular around here, so sometimes you've got to drag them out of their whatever their specific town or township is. Yeah, to get into. Oh, that's all part, it's way up there and it's like, okay, but it's only 25, 30 minutes. But once they do, though, I will say this they're insular, but ultimately, they are proud of the whole region. They are proud of the whole area, and what do you get a little coaxing in there. They are very supportive, though, of the whole area and they consider themselves from the whole area.
Speaker 2:That is really great. That is funny that you foresee that could be something that's everywhere, but that is definitely accurate about this. Even Salem, it's like a hop skipping, a jump away, but it seems so far away, like you wore it Not if you go up 11. Really yeah right 10 to 12. Which is the way, yeah, and a lot of them for me.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I grew up in the middle of nowhere so you couldn't do anything. If I wanted to do anything, I had to drive. The nice part around here is if you live in a town that's got a bunch of stuff, so technically you really don't need to go anywhere. You've got everything you want right there. You've got the restaurants, you've got a movie theater, you've got this and that and you don't really have to go too far. Me being the hillbilly that I am, I was used to having to drive all over every place In this area.
Speaker 1:five miles is 30 minute drive and LA, at 25 miles, is four hours, maybe longer. So let's give you a final wrap of how people get tickets, how people get involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You can check us out at mvscrapperscom. Like I said, check us out on all the major social media sites, but then also you can just give us a call 330-505-00000. We've got your ticket packages, we've got group outings. We're definitely starting to book those up. Sweets actually are a big thing. So last year sweets started filling up more than I had seen even since a few years before COVID. Those not only just for individuals, but businesses starting to use them, like I mentioned earlier. And then still a lot of great sponsorship opportunities of businesses want to get involved and come out and be involved in all the cool stuff we've got going out this year. Give us a call, we've got something for everybody.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 3:Thank you guys.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. Thank you for coming. You're a busy man. Music.