Any college baseball fan old enough to remember could tell you it was a special thing when the hometown Creighton Bluejays made it to the College World Series in 1991.
Twenty years after its only appearance at the championship, the Creighton baseball team will experience another defining moment in its program’s history: The Jays will take the field and throw the first pitches where the Road to Omaha will soon end. TD AMERITRADE Park, the home of the College World Series starting in 2011, will be the Bluejays’ new home field as well.
“There will be a lot of excitement, a lot of hoopla,” Jays head coach Ed Servais said. “Our first game will be the first game ever played there. I hope the weather cooperates. It will be a tremendous day for Creighton baseball, probably one of the highlights.”
Creighton announced Oct. 27 that it had reached an agreement with the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority (MECA) to allow Creighton to play its home games at TD AMERITRADE Park.
“It’s going to be awesome,” sophomore pitcher Brandon Koenigstein said. “Not many people get to play in a stadium that nice.”
The park boasts several improvements over Rosenblatt Stadium, where the Jays play some games now. Servais also hopes the Jays will get their own locker room.
“That’s something we don’t have at Rosenblatt,” he said, “the little things that make it feel like your home.”
If a Creighton team moving into a city-owned facility sounds familiar, it’s because the basketball team did it with the Qwest Center in 2003. The move paid off with the fans; the Jays ranked 12th in the nation in home attendance last season and set Missouri Valley
Conference records.
Creighton is hoping TD AMERITRADE Park will boost the baseball program the way Qwest did for basketball.
“We never thought the Qwest would attract an average of 16,000,” Schlegel said.
He said it will take a lot of work from university marketing and public relations as well as the city of Omaha to make the stadium profitable.
“It’s about getting Omaha to buy into what we’re doing,” he said. “Late spring baseball is attractive. But it will be tough for the first couple years. It won’t happen overnight.”
College baseball has traditionally never been a profit-making sport. But Schlegel thinks that will change at Creighton.
“We’re going to find we’re going to meet our budget. Our hope is that for the first time, baseball will be in the black,” he said.
Aside from its annual games against in-state rival Nebraska, Creighton baseball is not known for shattering attendance records. But the Jays hope to change that.
“[The stadium] should help us create a little buzz and hopefully help with people coming out to see us,” Servais said. “Then it’s our job to get the people to return.”
In fact, the stadium may help the Jays on that front as well. The first-class facility will translate to a major selling point for recruits.
“Young people want to see facilities,” Servais said. “That’s the number one thing they look at. Combine that with what we already have in academics, and hopefully that will attract the kind of student athlete we want.”
And if recruits are going to be eyeing that stadium, you can bet coaches and athletic directors will as well. Now Creighton will have the chance to bring powerhouse college baseball programs to them.
“It will allow us to attract top-notch college teams from across the country who would love to play in the home of the College World Series and hence improve our power ranking and that of the MVC,” Schlegel said in an Oct. 27 statement.
As bright as the future looks, it’s all still speculation at this point.
“None of us know how it’s going to feel until we get out there for our first game,” Servais said.
But if Creighton were ever to make it back to the event it plays host to every June, in its own ballpark, there’s one thing it might feel like.
“There’s a chance it could be even bigger and better than it was in ’91,” Servais said. “It would be something real special.”