Ralph Wilson enters the Hall on cloud nine

Reporting in from Canton, Ohio, as Ralph C. Wilson Jr. became the first member of the 2009 class to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Bills Hall of Famers join on the dais with first 2009 enshrinee Ralph Wilson Jr.

Aided by a boisterous and clearly blue shirted Buffalo cotingent in the audience, presernted Chris Berman of ESPN gave a stirring opening address. “The Swami” commended the Hall of Fame Committee, saying “this was one of the wisest selections the committee has made in a while.” Berman added, “The Bills still belong to Buffalo because your owner has given you his word.” Then he asked Bills fans to offer the Berman signature chant, and all obliged “No one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills!”

Wilson approached the podium, hugging fellow enshrinee Bruce Smith. Wilson shared numerous anecdotes about the early days of the Bills. He poignantly mentioned his daughter Linda Bogdan, who worked for the team as a scout, and who recently passed away from cancer. “I’m closing in on 91, and I still feel like I have youth on my side” And with that Wilson closed his remarks.

Checking out the sights around the HOF

Roughly three hours or so until the ceremony begins, and the streets surrounding the Hall of Fame complex, as well as the grounds, are teeming with fans. Tailgating is abundant; front lawns parked up with cars ($20 seems to be the template cost); Bills fans everywhere our supporters pretty much own the place.

Still drizzling. Hoping the skies will clear. Big blotches of green on the radar screen.

Finding fellow roadtrippers at the HOF

It didn’t take very long for us to run into some old friends and contacts.

Walking out of the media room, and directly into the concourse and exhibit areas here at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, we bump into Adam Goldstein and Hans Steiniger, two football roadtrippers extraordinaire.

We met Adam last year; he is from the United Kingdom, and during the 2008 NFL football season, he crisscrossed North America and visited every single NFL stadium, with side trips back to Wembley Stadium in London, and even to the Bills/Dolphins game up in Toronto. He maintains a web site at adamsfootballtrip.com.

Hans Steiniger is 26 stadiums into his multi year tour of what he calls “Quest for 31″. He should wrap things up this year, and with the help of his lovely wife and daughter who accompany him to some of the games, he is also building a lifetime of adventures and memories. Hans chronicles his tour at his own web site, nflfootballstadiums.com.

These guys weren’t hard to pick out of the crowd here in Canton – Hans is wearing his trademark “Quest for 31″ jersey, while Adam is garbed in one of the funkiest custom made hats with his football trip emblazoned on the top. Good stuff!

We exchanged pleasantries and shared plans for future trips – the boys are going to be in Buffalo for next Saturday’s exhibition opener at The Ralph, so perhaps a meetup and some tailgating plans in the works!

L-R… Hans, Peter, Adam and Andrew… road trip warriors!

It’s Hall of Fame Day in Canton

The skies are gray and dreary, and it’s raining here in Canton, Ohio this afternoon, but hopefully the skies will clear in time for tonight’s induction ceremony at Fawcett Stadium, where Bruce Smith and Ralph C. Wilson Jr. will be among six enshrinees into the 2009 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Already noticed as we were making our way to the Hall of Fame complex was the myriad of jerseys and outfits that fans are wearing, representative of all the teams in the National Football League. We are making comparisons to our experience at last year’s Grey Cup festivities in Montreal, when fans of all the CFL teams gathered to celebrate their league and their sport. Despite the gloom of the day, there is excitement in the air here in Canton, and for Buffalo Bills fans and supporters, this should be a special day indeed, perhaps the last such one at this event that we Buffalo folks will see in a long long time.

Ralph Wilson is slated to speak first, and he will be introduced by ESPN anchor Chris Berman. The Old Geezer is legendary for his longwindedness, and we are wondering if his placement on the program was deliberate, so as to keep the show moving. Yes we tend to bust on Wilson from time to time, but for him this is a day that is a long time coming, and gratefully, he has lived long enough to experience the joy of this accomplishment for himself. But don’t discount Bruuuuuuuuuuuce Smith either. My guess is that he will become choked up and lose it at some point in the program.

The Swami of WNYMedia, Marc Odien, is enroute and will be here covering the event, and we will have more in terms of news and photos right here at USRT as the day progresses.

Bisons Superfan Mark Aichinger sighting!

Mark Aichinger is in the building!

Anybody who attends a game at Coca Cola Field certainly knows who Mark is, the devout Bisons fan who hangs right behind home plate and jeers the visitors with his piercing chants.

So weren’t we surprised to hear the signature Mark “Aaaayyyy! Aaaayyyy!” sound amongst the crowd here at Huntington Park last night. We followed the sound, and found Mark behind the first base dugout, wearing a Lovullo #11 Indians jersey.

Talking to Torey Lovullo this afternoon, he smiled and said, “Yeah I hear Mark last night. He is one of the most special fans I have ever run into in all my years in baseball. He is truly one of a kind.”

We couldn’t say it any better, Torey.

Ballpark Visit – Columbus’ Huntington Park

We’ll say it now – Huntington Park in Columbus is the nicest ballpark in the International League (With apologies to the Gwinnett Braves; the USRT has yet to make that trek we’ll get there eventually).

What makes this ballpark so nice? No, not the kelly green seats, red brick facades and wrought iron gates and fences, the boilerplate of ballpark design these past 15-20 years. First of all, it is location. Huntington Park sits on the edge of the exciting and burgeoning Arena District in downtown Columbus, a mixed use development of offices, shops, restaurants, condos and loft apartments, anchored by the beautiful Nationide Arena, and now this ballpark.

What gives Huntington park its character and soul is the painstaking and loving attention to the history of baseball in Columbus, the International League, and minor league baseball in general. The concourses are replete with memorabilia of the team, murals heralding “The Speed of The Game”, and photos, mementoes and other exhibits are interspersed throughout the building.

The “Power Pavilion” beyond the left field wall is the place to be. The second floor has a bar and restaurant with wonderful views of the field, and tons of stuff on the walls to look at, including art and mementoes brought over from Cooper Stadium. On the 3rd floor is an area called “Roosters on the Roof”, with Wrigleyville styled rooftop bleachers, an entertainment area where contests and karaoke are being played, servers bringing heaps of yummy chicken wings (Nice looking but Duffs or Anchor Bar they ain’t), and fun is theme of this venue everywhere.

The Columbus Clippers are riding high with their new ballpark. Attendance is way up, and more nights than not the “Standing Room Only” sign is posted at the ticket window glass.

Much of the credit for this ballpark’s character and soul has to go to Joe Santry, the team’s media relations director and team historian. Joe shared with us his long time friendship and partnership with the late Bisons historian Joe Overfield, and how they would trade stories and share information to keep the treasured shared history of their beloved teams and their game alive for future generations. The effort here shows. For fans of venues (as we are), Huntington Park is a joy to visit and experience.

We will be visiting with Clippers GM Ken Schnacke and Manager (and former Bisons Manager) Torey Lovullo this afternoon to get their takes on the exciting new ballpark, as part of a future Play Ball column in Artvoice.

And the World Tour Continues….

On the road again, and another good one at that.

If it’s really true that “you can leave Buffalo, but Buffalo never leaves you” then this weekend will be proof of that.

Columbus will be the first stop on the weekend tour to visit Huntington Park, the new home of the Columbus Clippers for games tonight and Friday. (Buffalo connections: the Clippers are affiliated with former Bisons parent club Indians and feature several former Bisons up to and including manager Torey Lovullo. Also Columbus is home to our former Arena Football League Destroyers, though that entire league seems about ready to go under.)

Saturday: Canton, Ohio for the 2009 Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. (Buffalo connections: What? Do you live under a rock? Just brace yourself for the Old Geezer’s speech, it could be epic.)

Sunday: We’ll pass on the Hall of Fame game featuring the Bills as I have to be back at a decent hour for the real world on Monday. So we’ll do a side trip to see the best major league baseball park in the country(that doesn’t host a major league team) in PNC Park.(Buffalo connections: A stretch here, but former Bison Ryan Ludwick will be playing for the visiting Cardinals. And you can insert any crack at the Pirates to fit here…..”payroll roughly the same as the Bisons”….”crappy Major League team like Buffalo sports”….etc.

And back home we go after the Pirates game….unless we have a moment of insanity at game’s end(about 4:30 PM) and say “you know…it’s a short drive back to Canton for an 8pm kickoff. We should be home before sunrise Monday.”

Meanwhile… Cheektowaga Democrats are on a roll

We interrupt this sports themed site to bring you political updates from the Town of Cheektowaga

I’m kind of riding high today.

This afternoon I sat in on a hearing at Erie County Board of Elections, to testify to objections to petitions which we filed against an unendorsed candidate seeking to run for Cheektowaga Councilman.

The lady’s name is Lorna Castanik. I hardly know her and have only spoken to her a couple times. She seems very polite and well spoken, but I know she doesn’t like our party leadership very much; probably less after today. Only she and her mother went out, banged on doors and in the obtained 527 signatures to run for Council, just 27 more than the minimum.

Political veterans know to always get double than the minimum; obtaining just over 500 was playing with danger.

That was like red meat to me. I dove into her petitions, and within minutes found flaw after flaw after flaw – wrong number of signatures claimed in the witness statements, wrong witness identifier, people who previously signed our petitions (you can only sign one and the first date is the one that counts). By the time we were done scouring her sheets we had identified 207 bad signatures.

So for the first time I went through the exercise of filing objections, no easy task and a paperwork process that has to be technically accurate or the Board will reject them. Today was the hearing, and Commissioners Mohr and Ward saw things our way and kicked her petitions.

What does that mean? It means that our endorsed slate of Pat Jaworowicz, Stan Kaznowski and Jim Rogowski will not have to execute a primary campaign. We can save our resources and time and funds to battle the Republicans, instead of having to put forth a campaign to fend off the Castanik challenge, which had no support, no funding and no committee or platform to run a credible race anyway.

But there’s more.

We have no shortage of bon vivants here in Cheektowaga. A committeewoman named Diane Benczkowski decided that it was “her time”, and decided she wanted to be Erie County’s next Comptroller. I and others pleaded with her not to do this; we had wanted her to chair our Endorsed Candidates Committee, and she had just been named to our Town’s Planning Board and to the Master Plan Steering Committee. Nonetheless, she knew better, and off she went into her own little world. She got absolutely no traction from our Cheektowaga committee people or other stakeholders in our political family, all of whom believed that keeping our party united and on message for Team Poloncarz, Team Glascott and our local slate was crucial.

So I was not surprised when she called me two weeks ago, asking for a meeting. I met with her that same evening for coffee, and she told me she wished to withdraw from the race, sharing a number of reasons why she wanted out which I will keep private. I immediately turned her over to my Chairman Frank Max, who in turn contacted the ECDems, and in the end, she stipulated to and accepted the findings of specific objections against her petitions, which in essence meant an end to her campaign.

In the big picture, what is the impact of all this? It means that Mark Poloncarz, who by the way is a damned good Comptroller, could save his resources, not having to spend time and money and energy doing direct mail and media buys for a primary to fend off another Democrat, and instead can now focus on his real opponent, the Republican Phil Kadet.

In the end I and the Cheekdems can’t take the full credit for getting one of our own out of this race, but I played a vital part and for that I feel pretty damned good.

Next… the Sheriff’s race. Cheektowaga’s own John Glascott is picking up momentum every day as he tries to unseat Tim Howard, who has had nothing but bad news lately about the shoddy mess that his department has become. It is amazing how the various factions of Cheektowaga’s diverse political family are coalescing to support Team Glascott. People who were at each other’s throats during last year’s committee fights are practically showering together now, and this show of unity bodes well for our organization as we move forward into 2010 and beyond.

One interesting side note – of all the Erie County Legislature districts, two key Primaries will be waged right here in Cheektowaga. In LD-8 our own Tom Mazur has a spirited and energetic opponent. In LD-9, which overlaps into our Southline area, Tim Wroblewski is facing an all out attack on three lines to disrupt his campaign and try to unseat him. Both these men are hands on Legislators, very engaged in their districts, and enormously popular among their Cheektowaga constituents. But with no other races on the Primary ballot, it will mean a coordinated “get out the vote” effort to get our people to the polls in what is really an off Primary year. We will do all we can to be up to the task.

I have put literally hundreds of hours into the Cheekdems effort and for the EC Legislature Democratic Caucus these past two months.

It has been exhausting, exciting, exhilirating and yet shitty all at the same time. But in the end, being Executive Vice Chair of our County’s largest suburban Democratic organization is really a cool gig!

We now return you to our regular sports programming, already in progress…

AVANT – The Marquee

The sign is going up on the south facade of the building.

It will be backlit at night.

Totally… Amazing… Building.

Sabres tweak their variable pricing

This is the second biggest Sabres announcement day after schedule day – the day variable prices are announced.

Last year, the team was greeted with yawning gaps of empty seats in the upper corners for their showcase games, as the Sabres finally met their price resistance point when they introduced a Platinum tier, which included all the Toronto games as well as one contest vs. Montreal.

Well, Platinum pricing is back, although only for two games this year, both weekend contests against Toronto. Additonally, nine games have earned “Gold” status, including the highly anticipated December 11 matchup against Tim Kane and Brian Campbell with the Chicago Blackhawks, both games against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and surprisingly, the November 28 game against Carolina. I’m guessing that one will be a tough sell.

All the Bronze games fall on either Wednesday or Thursday nights, and curiously, the Montreal game on December 3, the same night as the Bills/Jets game up in Toronto, has earned Bronze status, which tells me that the Sabres are making a full push to insure a full house on a night when many fans will have their attention focused on the Bills.

The best Value game? Easily the Monday, December 7 game against New Jersey. In fact, the other Devils game, on January 27, only earned a Bronze. And just as a reminder, last year’s Value games against Nashville and Columbus drew packed houses, yet were easily the most unwatchable clunkers on the schedule. Just sayin’!

My prediction for the early big sellers? That Chicago game of course should go quickly. The one Gold Toronto game, Friday, October 30, will draw Leaves fans looking for a bit of a deal. The Friday, November 6 game vs Philadephia is only a Silver and that one should also do well.

Lastly, those lucky season ticket holders are the big winners, as single ticket pricing is way, way more expensive than what season subscribers get to pay. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Sabres season tickets are one of the best values going, considering the ridiculous and out of control spiral of salaries and costs in the four major sports these days.