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Saturday, July 04, 1998
Stars need fireworks for Fresno series
After drawing their biggest crowd in a 9-8 loss to Nashville, the Stars begin an important series at Fresno.
By Matt Jacob
Review-Journal
If you shoot fireworks, they will come.
Time and again during their 16 years in Las Vegas, the Stars have proven that to be true, including the past two nights.
Some 24 hours after drawing the second-largest crowd in team history, the Stars eclipsed their record by five fans Friday night when 14,855 packed Cashman Field for a game against the Nashville Sounds.
For the record, the Stars lost 9-8 -- not that it mattered. Like Thursday night, when a crowd of 14,514 filled Cashman, most of the fans turned out for the elaborate postgame fireworks show that has become a Southern Nevada pre-Independence Day tradition.
Of course, now that the smoke from the last skyrocket has cleared, the Stars find themselves facing a familiar dilemma: trying to convince many of the fireworks-loving fans to return to the ballpark throughout the summer just for the baseball.
It's been a tough sell recently, mainly because the Stars often have struggled to remain in the hunt for a Pacific Coast League playoff spot.
This summer is no different. After Friday's loss, Las Vegas (39-40) is in second place in the PCL South Division, 12 games behind the Fresno Grizzlies.
The task of overtaking Fresno appears daunting, but the good news for the Stars is they play eight of their next 12 games against the Grizzlies, including a four-game series that begins tonight in Fresno.
For manager Jerry Royster, the series not only is the most important of this season, it's the most important of any season since he became Las Vegas' field boss in 1996.
"I'll go to the bottom of the well to pull these (games) out," Royster said. "They're my four biggest games in the three years that I've been here. We had some big series when we won (the second half title) in 1996, but none of this importance. This is huge.
"We come out of this 13, 14 games out of first place, thoughts are going to have to change. You're no longer a contender; you're a pretender."
The Stars -- and the two other clubs in the South Division -- have been chasing Fresno all year, and it's been an unfair race.
The Grizzlies have twice strung together 10-game win streaks, and they enter tonight's game having won four straight and nine of 11. Also, their 50-27 record is tops in the 16-team PCL.
"They're playing great," said Royster, whose team lost three of four to Fresno at home in early June. "And it's not like they have a bunch of veterans who are over there just kicking butt. They've got some young guys who've come in and (are) kind of going through this league with a lot of desire. I really like their team; I love their team."
But he loves his team, too, and believes it's more than capable of sweeping Fresno.
"Without a doubt," Royster said. "And that's the challenge: to win all four. The challenge isn't to go in there and split against a team that's (12) games ahead of us. It's (a chance) to go in there and make a statement."
And should the Stars make a statement against Fresno, they'll end up sending a statement to Southern Nevada baseball fans.
"If we go in there and get swept, we've got a lot of work to do to keep the fans interested," Royster said. "But if we go in there and rush these guys for three or four victories, then (the fans) are going to say, `Hey, maybe these guys are for real. Maybe it isn't a bunch of talk.' "
-- NOTES -- Nashville (36-44) scored a run in the sixth to tie the game at 8, and Kevin Grijak's one-out single in the seventh scored Adrian Brown from second with the winning run. ... The Stars were paced by James Mouton (3-for-4, home run, three runs) and Greg LaRocca (2-for-4, homer, two runs, two RBIs). ... The previous single-game high was 14,850 on July 3, 1997. Eight of the Stars' top 10 crowds have been on July 3. ... The club set a two-game attendance record with 29,369. ... The Stars play single games tonight and Monday and a doubleheader Sunday in Fresno. After the two-day All-Star break, they travel to Tucson for four games before returning to Cashman on July 13 to begin a four-game set against Fresno.
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