Transcripts

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's kind of like getting ready for a big date without really knowing whether your escort will show up this process of preparing for the playoff games. The tickets have been all printed up and have been on sale by mail and in person for some time now, but the fans seem a little skeptical. Only about half of the 50,000 available tickets to each of the two playoff games have been sold.

But Twins public relations director Tom Mee is convinced the fans are loyal, that they believe the Twins can make it into the playoffs. The drawback for many, he says, have been the price of mail order tickets. When purchasing tickets in that manner, fans were required to buy tickets to the two playoff games and 4 World Series games at prices ranging from $76 to $130. Mee says ticket sales were much brisker the last time the Twins got into post-season play in 1965.

TOM MEE: I think that was primarily the reason why the tickets didn't go all at once as they did in 1965, for instance, when we opened up the sale. But in '65, we only had the World Series to sell, and it was going to be a four-game deal. And it was clean and neat, and we got more orders than we could handle.

But the difference here is you're selling two series at once. You're selling the playoffs, and you're selling the World Series. And as a result, the number of bucks that have to be laid out is considerably higher. And it's a tough order.

PAULA SCHROEDER: But there's a lot more involved in the preparations for a national event like the playoffs than just selling tickets. Sportswriters, photographers, and broadcasters from all over the country would converge on the Twin Cities, and Mee says the Twins plan to take good care of them, reserving hotel rooms and providing other services.

TOM MEE: We arranged for buses to transport the media from the hotels to the games each day and back. We make arrangements for hospitality rooms at the hotel to entertain the media and provide breakfast and lunch and that sort of thing for them. We had it pretty well set. Now it's a question of following through.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Mee says the fans, however, are on their own. As far as making arrangements for housing are concerned, the Twins organization is not setting aside blocks of hotel rooms to accommodate potential fans.

TOM MEE: Yeah. They're on their own.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Now, it isn't often that the Twins get this far in the season, and people who bought souvenirs at any of those 1965 games have collector's items on their hands. It just so happens that a good share of the novelty items made for post-season games are manufactured right here in Minnesota. At Winona's ASCO, President Dick Pope says his company manufacturers--

DICK POPE: Pennants, button strips, buttons, pennant packs, promotional jewelry, and mugs.

PAULA SCHROEDER: ASCO already has products ready for Detroit, San Diego, and Chicago, but the American League West situation is holding up production on products for the fourth playoff team. Pope is not concerned however.

TOM MEE: We're ready with artwork for the three contending teams. And as soon as one of them is confirmed, we're ready to go into the marketplace and deliver on very short notice.

PAULA SCHROEDER: A majority of ASCO's products are sold at retail stores rather than at the stadium because says Pope, they're more accessible to the fans there. One of the biggest selling items at the stadium is programs, slick four-color books that are expensive to print up. And that job, says Tom Mee, falls to the Twins organization.

TOM MEE: We have to put out the playoff program, and we also have to put out a media guide for the press coming in to cover it. And those are a couple of big jobs that have to be done, yet you can't pull the trigger on the presses until you know you're going to be in it because you don't want to print up 50,000 books to sell and then have no series.

PAULA SCHROEDER: We'll know by Sunday night whether the Twins have made it into the playoffs or not, and only then will these well-laid plans be set into motion. I'm Paula Schroeder.