Roughly 1,003 spectators filled the stands at Joe O’Brien Field Wednesday night for the Twins’ home opener against the Pulaski Yankees.
And Elizabethon Twins General Manager Mike Mains was pretty happy with the turnout.
“Tonight is a great turnout,” Mains said. “You can see that the support for this team is here. Another thing you see too is that all ages come out to watch the game — little kids all the way up to seniors. Fans that are well into their nineties are here tonight. There are not many recreational programs that will touch that broad of an age span, but this is one of them.”
For Mains and his staff, it has taken six months to prepare for Wednesday, and Mains felt that things ran really smooth Wednesday, which is great considering it was opening night.
“It has been a great night,” he said. “It is tough to have a flawless opening night. We have such a good staff of people that have been around the game for a really long time, and it has ran like clockwork. That is important. We want to put on a good show. This is pro baseball, so we have to act like pros ourselves. I think our staff has done a great job.”
“Once you get your first game over with and you can settle in,” Mains added. “You can really enjoy things. We may tweak a few things to make it better for our fans.”
Wednesday night Elizabethton Twins fan got to see the Minnesota Twins’ first-round pick Alex Kirilloff take to the field for the time this season. Mains said that when it comes down to it, it is guys like Kirilloff and the rest of the Twins lineup that make Elizabethton team so special.
“Our focus is sometimes on the players themselves and how proud we are of this team,” Mains said. “We like to focus on the great job they are going to do both on the field and off the field. They are a great group of guys.”