Tacoma Rainiers President Aaron Artman Visits at Cheney Stadium

Aaron Artman, President of the Tacoma Rainiers, sits down with Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma to talk about stadium and history, attractions bringing people to Rainiers games, lack of gimmicks, season tickets, and the hot dogs.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Live from the R and R FoundationSpecialist Broadcast Studio. Now back to Softie
and Dick one your home for theHuskies and the Kraken Sports Radio ninety three
point three kJ R FM, thirdand nine. If they can take fifteen
seconds off the clock, they're gonnawin the ball game. Toss sweep right.
Dylan Johnson cuts up field. Oh, he's gonna go because the thirty

(00:22):
five thirty. He slides down tothe twenty five. The huskis the top
twelve champion. Jim, Dylan Johnson, did it? Do you believe?
In days? Wow? I wasn'ttotally Jacks. I swear on my grandfather's
grain. I was totally kidding.You were not. I would never I

(00:42):
was Jackson. I would never eversay something like that unless I'm being honest.
All right, I swear on DickFane's son Dixon. All right,
I was kidding when I said,I believe you that you were kidding.
Yes, But I also believe Jacksonwhen he thought you were serious, because
I thought you were okay. Well, series slip. The President of the

(01:03):
Rainiers, Aaron Hartman, is withus here. Good to see your pal.
Thanks for having us down here.By the way, but he revealed
to us during the break that hewent to Oregon, And so I thought
jokingly told the producer of this fineradio show, Hey, where do you
bump back with the Dylan Johnson toseal the deal in Vegas? And we
just gave it to you. SoI gotta be honest with you. I
was kidding, but now I'm kindof glad you played it. Hey,

(01:26):
welcome to k j R. Baby, How are I welcome to Genie Stadium?
I got to pick my house guestsexactly. We're in his house and
we're ripping on him. Here's anidea. Once she makes the Revalie's right.
Once you have DJ toss out thefirst pitch of the game this summer.
How's that sound? Michael Pennix willbring them all down here. Well,
listen, man, it's great tosee you. First of all,
thanks for having us down here.Dick and I are UH to steal a
nineties term from high school. Wewere both stoked to be here a couple

(01:49):
times a month during the summer,going to be here all summer long at
Cheney Stadium. Tonight's day number one, Uh in a place that I've been
coming to, this place for along, long time Tigers games back in
the eighties when I was a kid, I saw Maguire and Conseco and guys
like Walt Weiss come through here.Mariners took over with the Rainier name in
the mid nineties, but this placeis, uh, it's still rocking man

(02:09):
after all these years. Yeah,there's a lot of great history here,
and with the stadium renovation we wereable to do in eleven and continue to
add things here and there. It'sit's a fantastic place and we're super proud
of it, and colmost proud ofit. It's a good spot for all
of us people down here in theSouth Sound. Well. I take my
kids and take my family here everysingle year and ask them, you know,

(02:31):
a month ago, Hey, doyou guys want to go Rainiers game?
Yes? Absolutely. And then mywife, who is not a baseball
fan and has never asked me togo to a Mariners game, swear to
God, two weeks ago, justout of the blue, she goes,
Hey, are we gonna go toa Rainiers game? This year? And
so my question to you is whatabout it? Like, what about this
place makes my wife, not abaseball fan, say, are we going

(02:53):
to go to a Rainiers game thatprobably the bar downstairs. Well, that
doesn't hurt, but it hurts,you know, we hear that a lot.
And part of it is we're kindof a different model than the big
league teams. Right, we didn'twon. We don't control who plays here
unless we're really good. And thenI say, we have a little bit
of a saying in but truthfully,we don't wow, and so we provide

(03:14):
an experience and I think a lotof people come for that experience. There's
a little more entertainment and it's justa different vibe down here. It's close.
While we've done all these renovations.You know, you sit in the
seating bowl, you're sitting at thesame angle and the same pitch and seat
location as someone in nineteen sixty.Wow, And that's hard to find wow
in stadiums, particularly out west.That's a good goal. And so there's

(03:35):
a little bit of nostalgia and it'skind of an iconic place and you don't
have to love baseball to have agood time here, and that that's kind
of the beauty of it. Well, Aaron Artman, again, the president
of the Rainiers, is with us. We're gonna be here a bunch over
the summer at Cheney Stadium. AndI think a lot of people think of
minor league baseball and they think ofwacky marketing gimmicks and promotions and things like
that. You know, of asectomy night, divorce lawyer Knight, you

(03:58):
know whatever, this go demolition,You guys have to kind of go down
that road. Do you have anykind of fun stuff happening this summer?
You know we avoid that kind ofstuff like the plague. Why part of
it, Well, part of itis there's so much history here. I
mean you think of the our fivesuites here on the second level are named
after hall of famers, you knowone Marichelle Gaylord Perry Griffy, all people
that have played here, even ifthey've only played here for a game.

(04:21):
And so Tacoma has a proud baseballhistory. And it's not really a gimmicky
place, right, you know,you don't get away with too much BS
and Tacomba. It's not a passiveaggressive north I always say Tacoma is like
an East Coast city. It's theleast passive aggressive place in the entire West
Coast, particularly in Northwest. Andso you know where we found successes is

(04:42):
kind of going the other way.You look at our logo, it's the
top selling hat in all of minorleague baseball, and it's an old classic
r that we all know and love. Think, yeah, we named it
after the mountain in Seattle was namedafter the beer. But all of our
hat designs and our merchs on aclassic and it does well down here.
And so I think, you know, part of the thing with those gimmicks

(05:04):
too, is is it's really hardto build an identity and build a core
of fans when it's just, hey, what am I going there for tonight?
Versus building it with a season ticketbase and groups and businesses and nonprofits,
And so we actually stay far awayfrom that and it works for us.
Clearly. It interesting that kind ofstuff works great in other places.

(05:25):
So how about your your season ticketbase and percentage wise, how does it
compare for you guys versus other minorleague teams? And then percentage wise,
how does it compare with say,the Mariners season tickets versus just walk up
guys versus So Tacoma's interesting. Wehave to work a lot harder for our
fans compared to other minor league markets. So we're probably in the bottom third

(05:46):
in single game just people walking upto buy a ticket, got it.
But we're in the the upper echelonfor season tickets and groups and uh and
we rank really well even against citieslike Nashville, Charlotte, Las Vegas,
big markets that have Triple A becausethis is a small Triple A market and
a small stadium. So pound forpound, we're swinging with everybody, and

(06:06):
we like to think even pound forpound, we're swinging with the teams up
north. We don't have the levelof of the the athletes, right,
We're not the top level, butwe try to have that level of experience.
Yeah, and take a lot ofpride in that. It's it's we're
a minor league team, but wedon't think of ourselves that way, and
it helps us. Is the walkup smaller because this isn't a small town

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and a lot of times you getyou get the small town field that surrounds
the minor league team. I thinkit is it grow. It's been growing
every year since I've been here,but just not by a ton each year.
And from what I was told,dating all the way back to nineteen
sixty, this has always been aseason ticket town. It's not been a
huge walk up, and we've certainlytried to figure that out. And so

(06:48):
it's it's growing each year, buta lot of teams will have thirty forty
percent of their ticket revenue b singlegame in ours ours, you know,
ten to fifteen. Well, thenso many other minor league towns. Let's
face it, there's nothing else todo. It's right, these sides watched
baseball. So not the case hereat all. But Aaron Hartman's with us
and a butler of food just gotdelivered behind you. By the way,

(07:11):
there's enough to feed the whole stadium, for God's sake. When somebody comes
out and says best hot dog inbaseball, I mean, I don't know.
That's a pretty that's a big timestatement. Go ahead and back that
up for me. What makes youthink you have the best hot dog in
baseball? Well, it's the samedog with the same bun and the same
condiments in the same style every time. Which that sounds like, okay,

(07:32):
great, But it was the lasttime you go to a stadium and you
order something and it's as good orthe same or consistent as it was the
year before. The vendors changed,the concessionaire changes and we spent about two
years finding this dog. It's madein Chicago, and about a year finding
the bun and then perfected the toppings. It was a huge passion project for

(07:55):
our majority owner and chairman, MichaelThompson, and he was sick of going
to baseball stadiums finding and dog.He loved him. The next year it
was different and he said, weare going to have the same dog every
year into Coomb when it's going tobe the best, and he named it
the best. Not talking baseball,so it's a lofty standard, so you're
gonna have to try it. Well, let's do this right now. Let's
get a live report from our morningman, Chuck Powell, who's doing the
game. By the way, tonight, you have sampled what the Rainiers are

(08:20):
calling the best hot dog in baseball. Give us a full report on your
your findings both baseball. I thinkthat's all you have to know. Man,
we go, by the way,you mentioned something real quick before you
go. Aaron Hartman, the presidentof the Rainiers with us here on the
show. And maybe you're being sarcastic, but do you have any say at
all over the roster whatsoever. TheMariners call and say, hey, Hancock's

(08:41):
coming up. No he's not.He's staying right down here. For what
do you guys have any shred ofa say over that stuff? Not even
a shred, not not anything.If you're what if it's September, We've
seen that before. It's septemher we'veseen it. You guys need a win
to win the PC and the Marinersare sixty five and ninety. You still

(09:05):
can't say, can you give meHancock for a game? We've seen teams
get busted up before. Right inthat scenario, I may make a call,
yeah, and I still probably wouldn'tget an answer, but someone could
magically appear. That's right, ifthat was the way it's gonna be.
But the the uh, that's likethe Church and State line. We run
the business in the operation down here, and the Mariners handle the player's side,

(09:26):
and uh so yeah, we don'twe Uh it's interesting, it's fun.
I love it, hey man,thanks for having us out. Looking
forward to this. And by theway, Jackson, I gotta ask you,
can we do a recorded segment nextsegment because there's a kid Valley we
got iverys we go the whole thing. So I'm gonna need a segment off.
If that's just replay this interview again. Next segment, you go,

(09:48):
I was driving back to the stadium. I got a I got a master's
degree in life. If we replayedHugh, we leave right now, kidding
me, never mind, next section. Just cut out the raccoon party.
No, no that in there,all right, man, Aaron, thanks
buddy, appreciate this poll. Thankyou. Aaron Rman, the president of
the Rainiers with us here on theradio show Mike Curdo, who handles play

(10:09):
by play for the Rainiers. Youknow, Mike, he's a cow guy.
By the way, we got acow guy, duck guy. What
the hell is going on? Where'sthe Husky fans around here? Man?
Right here on ninety three three kJRFM.