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Bisons Baseball to Raise Curtain on its 121st Season

First Baseman Ryan Garko
(photo: Rose Mattrey)

It’s here! A sign of spring…the fresh green grass, the smell of hot dogs, that sweet sound of the crack of the bat, the echo of the PA announcer and the music through the streets of downtown Buffalo, the happy kids and families streaming into the ballpark. It can only mean one thing—Bisons baseball is back.

The Bisons will open the home schedule of their 121st season of professional baseball in Buffalo on Friday, April 14, against the Columbus Clippers at 6:05pm. “A Fridaynightbash! is the perfect start to what will be an exciting and eventful summer at Dunn Tire Park,” said Mike Buczkowski, Bisons vice president and general manager. “With everything from the Famous Chicken to the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, fireworks and great giveaways, we have a promotion that will fit our great fans of all ages.”

It’s been a busy offseason for the Bisons, the parent Cleveland Indians and around the league. Let’s get you caught up on goings on.

Kazuhito Tadano is gone…and will be missed

The first Japanese athlete ever to wear any Buffalo professional sports uniform, Tadano spent a good part of the last three seasons here in Buffalo and would have been back for a fourth, had he not been traded to the Oakland Athletics on the eve of the season opener. During his time here, Tadano took on and courageously overcame many obstacles…lack of knowledge of our language, assimilating difficulty into American culture and cuisine and having to answer proactively to an embarrassing revelation that he had participated in a gay porn video during his college days in Japan. Good luck on the West Coast, Kaz.

A great ballpark in Rochester just got better

“If you like the scoreboard in Buffalo, then you’ll like what you’ll see here at Frontier Field,” reports Rochester Red Wings General Manager Dan Mason. Mason is really excited now that his team will be unveiling their new video board in time for the 2006 season, manufactured by Daktronics and jointly funded by the team and taxpayer dollars. Says Mason, “This is the 10th year for our ballpark, and it was time to upgrade our scoreboard to keep up with the rest of the league.”

So if you haven’t yet made the trip to Rochester to take in a baseball game at Frontier Field, then do so this year—cheer on the Bisons, who make four separate trips there this season. Oh, and bring your appetite, the concessions there are awesome.

Manager Torey Lovullo
(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Manager Torey Lovullo on the 2006 Bisons

You can sense the unbridled enthusiasm about his 2006 team that tore through opponents in exhibition play. “We have some familiar faces coming back—Ryan Garko played here all last year, Jason Cooper played here, and we add some new faces in the mix like [pitcher] Jeremy Sowers,” said Lovullo. “Cleveland has once again handed us a strategic mix of returning veterans and bright new prospects, and I’ve told these guys all along that as long as you give me your all there is no reason we should not be successful.”

Lovullo is especially excited about his starting pitching rotation. “Fans here will see some special baseball…we got Sowers, Jeremy Guthrie, Jake Dittler and Jason Stanford. The list goes on and on. My job is to push them along,” said Lovullo.

New third baseman Andy Marte was singled out as an up-and-coming big leaguer. “This guy is real close,” said Lovullo. “I knew we’d have him here after the great spring training [Indians third baseman] Aaron Boone enjoyed. I’m going to just enjoy the time we have with him in Buffalo.”

Lovullo returns to Buffalo after a successful stint as a Bisons player in the 1990s, where he helped lead the team to two league championships.

Stately old ballparks—Fenway, Wrigley and…Dunn Tire Park?

Around the International League, ground will soon be broken for Huntington Park in downtown Columbus, the new home for the Clippers. And although the mayor of Richmond and the Richmond Braves ownership have spent much of the winter carping at each other, there are definite plans in the works in Richmond to replace the Diamond.

Translation? It shouldn’t be too long before our Dunn Tire Park holds the distinction of being the oldest ballpark in the International League. And that suits Mike Buczkowski just fine. “It’s still amazing to me that we’re the third oldest, and the fact that we will someday be the oldest is just a testimony to Buffalo that we showed the way for how a stadium should be built,” Buczkowski said. “And even if it is one of the oldest parks, we want to make sure it doesn’t look old. And that takes the effort of many people. Thanks to a great owner like Bob Rich, public partners in the city and now Erie County, and some wonderful workers, we are keeping Dunn Tire Park a clean and beautiful place to watch a game and a fan-friendly experience.”

Hiroshima welcomes Marty Brown

When former Bisons Manager Marty Brown bid sayonara to Buffalo after last season, he meant it. Many thought that Brown would land a coaching job at the Major League level, but instead he took the managerial post with the Hiroshima Carp of the Japan Central League, where he spent time in his playing days. On March 31 Brown’s debut as manager was a successful one, as his Carp beat the Chunichi Dragons on the road at the Nagoya Dome 2-0, sending an opening day crowd of 37,746 home disappointed.

Following the Bisons on the Web

If you check out the Bisons website, you’ll see a lot of changes. The Bisons have joined the MLB Advanced Media Network, linking their site to the entire spectrum of Major and Minor League Baseball. “This season all our games will be streamed on the Internet and we’ll be tracking our games pitch by pitch online as well,” reports Public Relations Coordinator Brad Bisbing. “The real-time graphics fans will see will mimic the software fans enjoy when watching games on MLB.com.”

Red Osier roast beef is back!

Buffalo’s culinary gifts to the world are beef on weck and chicken wings, and one of the great pleasures of attending a sporting event in Buffalo is enjoying a really good roast beef sandwich. The folks at HSBC Arena get it and have set up roast beef carvers in the pavilion, Studio 200 and the Pour Man’s Aud Club. So of all the new concession items to be unveiled at the ballpark this year, like the steak and cheese sandwiches and the Cinnabon rolls, it is the return of Red Osier to Dunn Tire Park after a three-year absence that got our attention. They will take over their former location in the main concourse behind home plate. Yummy!

Jake Gautreau chimes in on Torey Lovullo’s managerial style

Infielder Jake Gautreau was happy to become a Buffalo Bison when he arrived in 2005. “I always heard that Buffalo had a good team, so that was something I really wanted to be a part of,” said Gautreau. So having gone through spring training under Managers Marty Brown and Torey Lovullo, we asked Gautreau to compare the two. “They’re both very similar, actually, since both aren’t far removed from their playing days,” responded Gautreau. “Torey is the kind of guy who demands a lot from his players, but he also tells you to go out there and have fun. And that’s what baseball is all about.”

During his time in Buffalo, Brown had more than his share of Lou Piniella moments on the field, arguing decisions with the umpires and kicking up the dust. Can fans expect to see the same passion out of Lovullo? “Marty was great,” Gautreau replied. “He always raised things up a notch and gave the guys a good laugh.” Gautreau then added, “I don’t know what Torey does, but the players and the fans are about to find out real soon!”