Jacksonville’s minor league baseball team, the Jumbo Shrimp, played Wednesday night's season opener before a near record home crowd of more than 10,000 fans — that’s after many fans booed the team’s name change from the Jacksonville Suns last fall.
General Manager Harold Craw said, knowing Jacksonville’s reputation as a walk-up town, he expected most fans to buy their tickets just before the game. But that wasn’t the case.
“The bulk of our tickets were sold pre-sale and, you know, we still had a lot of people walk up and purchase tickets on the night of, so what that means is we did a great job of kind of creating that buzz.”
The “buzz” Craw is referring to included talking-up the new shrimp items on the ballpark menus and letting fans pick the name of the Jumbo Shrimp’s new mascot.
“Scampi,” he says, was the hands-down favorite.
As for the game itself, it was a 7-1 win for the Jumbo Shrimp over the Chattanooga Lookouts. The teams face each other again Thursday at the Baseball Grounds for the second of a four-game series. First pitch is at 7:05. Visit the team's website for its schedule.
Reporter Cyd Hoskinson can be reached at 904-358-6351, choskinson@wjct.org or on Twitter @cydwjctnews
