Dayton Dragons use compassion to sell out

DAYTON, Ohio  Next door to a liquidation outlet, baseball could not be more alive. So how does a minor league team in a struggling Rust Belt city sell out 814 games in a row?

Maybe we should start with the female fan with one leg.

One of the ticket representatives for the Dayton Dragons retrieves her car for her each game she attends. "That's not in the manual," Eric Deutsch said Wednesday, as the executive vice president of a team on the edge of history. "That's an employee knowing someone needs help and doing the right thing.

"There are very few things we can't make right."

And so it goes with the Dragons, who this Saturday night will fill the house for the 815th consecutive time, breaking the all-time sports record of the Portland Trail Blazers, circa 1977-95. The Dragons were born in 2000. Every seat has been sold since.

"I think it's a love affair between a city and its team," Art Matin said over the phone, he the CEO of Mandalay Baseball Properties, owner of the Dragons and five other minor league teams. "And it goes both ways."

This despite a relentless departure of people and industry; Dayton's population decline this century is the nation's fifth worst. This despite a 24-game home losing streak last season. "Almost statistically impossible," Matin said of the skid.

"We don't bring it up," team President Robert Murphy mentioned at Fifth Third Field on Wednesday. No, they can't control victory and defeat, but they try on nearly everything else.

You ask Murphy and Deutsch — front office wizards who have been with the Dragons from the start — how this has happened and they show you the binders of testimonials from satisfied patrons.

They tell you of the woman with one leg and the man who found out after a game he locked his keys in his car. The Dragons general manager drove him home.

They tell you of ticket prices held in the $7-$13.75 range and reasonable concessions and season tickets that can be renewed on installment plans, so no one gets hit too hard over Christmas.

They tell you the secret is not brilliant baseball but customer service from the heart and a connection to the people. Before he was an All-Star for the parent club Cincinnati Reds, barely 50 miles down the road, Jay Bruce was once a Dragon, coloring books with little kids.

Meanwhile, the workers in the stands wear red, and they are everywhere, including at the gate to wish you good night as you leave. "You can't turn around without seeing one of those red shirts, which is by design," Murphy said.

They tell you about the Home Run for Life. A seriously ill child gets to run the bases to cheers from players and fans, music and foghorn blaring. Murphy got the idea watching a terminally ill friend of his daughter years ago in Las Vegas take a lap with a local celebrity.

For one moment, a family can forget its anguish, and that comes in the fifth inning rather than before the game, for a reason. "I want the entire audience to pay attention to this," Murphy said.

They tell you about Capt. Thigpen. The Dragons often connect military families with their loved ones serving overseas, who appear on the scoreboard. One night, the wife and two young sons of Air Force Capt. Jim Thigpen were supposedly talking to him in the Middle East, when technical difficulties cut short the conversation. The announcer apologized, the wife's face sagged.

Suddenly, onto the field came Capt. Thigpen, roses in hand. The game nearly had to be delayed to make time for the hug.

"That's what creates the love affair," Deutsch said of such moments.

Oh, the Dragons play baseball, too, with 8,000-plus watching. And Dayton, win or lose, boom or bust, always comes back for more.