April showers and May flowers normally mean baseball season. That’s no different this year, with the BlueClaws having already played 18 of their 70 home games. But one ballpark fixture has had somewhat of a lighter schedule thus far this season – PA announcer Kevin Clark, for whom April showers and May flowers have meant additional time at the ice-level.

Clark, as he has been since the Devils moved into the Prudential Center five years ago, is the Devils PA-announcer, and with their run into the Eastern Conference Finals, he’s been at fewer BlueClaws games so far.

“People at work with and a few season ticket holders have asked about me, want to know if I’m OK,” Clark said. “They haven’t heard me. They’ve been asking if I quit or if I’m done. But with the hockey going on, that’s my focus now and the schedule hasn’t fallen the right way. And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

This is the first time the Devils have won a playoff round since Clark started – and they’ve won two, beating the Panthers and Flyers in the first two rounds. Last night, they lost game one of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Rangers, 3-0, but don’t ask Clark how the game went.

“When they’re on the road, I can’t watch – I’m a nervous wreck. Whatever my wife wants to watch we’ll have on,” he said. “It’s like watching a scary movie under a blanket. Every so often you poke your head out.”

At home, as they will be this weekend, it’s far less stressful, even though he’s working. It’s also a lot different than a BlueClaws game.

“It’s night and day,” he said. “I’m down on the ice for the hockey games and you feel more removed in a baseball game. It’s so loud (hockey) and it’s crazier down there.” (Clark is in the top left in the photo with the off-ice officials)

One thing that makes baseball a bit easier – you don’t have too many of these: “If you get a Kovalchuck, Zubrus, Ponikarovsky goal announcement, I probably need a little oxygen.”

Clark will be back to FirstEnergy Park on a regular basis soon, and he’ll still do a handful of games as his schedule permits, but that’s up to the Devils (and the Rangers) right now.

“I want to be there but I hope this goes all the way into June,” he said. “It’s been an incredible ride.”

This is all new at the ballpark this year, and we wanted to pass it along…Buster’s Chips. Here’s what you get:

Your own souvenir BlueClaws helmet filled with fried potato chips, shredded barbeque pulled pork, jalapenos, black olives, cheddar cheese, and a dollop of sour cream!

Buster’s Chips are available on the third base concourse for just $12 (if you just want the helmet, it’s available in the Claws Cove).

Enjoy!

While all of you have been thrilled with the weather we’ve had this winter (if you can call it that), perhaps nobody has been more excited than BlueClaws groundskeeper Ryan Radcliffe. Radcliffe, of course, is in charge of making sure the field is all set and ready to go when Opening Day arrives on April 12th.

“It’s been amazing, just looking at the soil temperatures from years past, we’re up about ten degrees from where we usually are at this time.” Apparently, I did not know this, the grass kicks in growing and greening at about 50 degrees and we’ve been at 60 at spots already (this is a soil temperature, not the actual temperature).

You can listen to the podcast below or pop it on you iPod (right click this link, save link as, drop it in your iTunes).

Thanks for listening.

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The podcast plan is essentially to do a couple each week, one with manager Mickey Morandini, which we’ll on Thursdays. We will also have a podcast with BlueClaws GM Geoff Brown in the days leading up to the home opener and we’ll solicit questions from fans for that one – stay tuned.

Pretty self explanatory, but important nonetheless.

Two great Jersey Shore restaurants will now be occupying the Asbury Park Press Food Court in right field and will sell tacos, wraps, and pizza at all 70 games (we’ll let you decide which is which).

We share it here because it seemed like very popular news on Facebook and Twitter earlier today.

Below the fold, is the full release.

(more…)

Eleven years ago today – March 13, 2001, the BlueClaws front office staff members moved into FirstEnergy Park for the first time after working on Airport Road for the previous few months.

Move-in day was quite hectic, according to BlueClaws Asst GM Brandon Marano, who is still here in his role 12 years later.

“It was about a three or four day process because we had to keep our business operations going at our location in the industrial park…We were all hands on deck, loading the truck, unpacking the truck…It was basically moving our entire office over.”

The picture you see on the right was taken four months prior to move-in day, on November 10th, of 2000. Obviously shortly after that photo a lot of grass was laid down and the path was paved leading up to the gate as it is today.

How close did they cut it, before the first game? Marano’s first fan complaint:

“A woman walked up to the gates 15 minutes before we opened to look inside and had nothing but green paint on her jacket because it was still wet.”

Listen to the podcast below or click here to download the file to your computer (right click, save link as, you can bring it into your iTunes to listen to later if you want).

Note: later, we’re coming back with a little 5-million announcement, which was part of the reasoning for taping this podcast.

Last year, BlueClaws groundskeeper Ryan Radcliffe oversaw the installation of a completely new playing surface at FirstEnergy Park, with about 95,000 square feet of new sod laid down in November and December.

But every year, he goes back to work laying down additional sod in various areas of the field.

“We were re-sodding the worn-out areas from the season,” he said yesterday. “These are really where the second baseman and shortstop stand, where the grass and dirt meet, where the first baseman and third baseman stand when they play in, and in front of the mound. The areas in front of the mound we re-sod during the season as well.”

All told, it was about 250 square feet of sod laid down yesterday, before is started pouring. That works out to only .27% of the entire field, but of course those are areas that take a beating on a daily basis.

If you want to read about the entire installation process from last year, click here for the FirstEnergy Park category, and scroll down to the bottom of this page and the page prior.

Fox 29 and their anchor John Anderson are spending the summer doing ballpark tours around some of the area’s minor league parks and they came to Lakewood a few weeks back. Here is the piece:

Minor League Baseball Tour Hits Lakewood: MyFoxPHILLY.com

Ruben Frank of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia went undercover at FirstEnergy Park.

Happy Anniversary to FirstEnergy Park!

The stadium was formally dedicated 10 years ago today in a ceremony that included then-mayor Marta Harrison.

If you click the picture on the right, you can enlarge. This plaque is on the outside of the stadium just next to the glass doors that lead to the team’s Executive Offices.

Here’s a brief timeline:

• April 16th, 2000: Ground was broken here at the stadium.
• October, 2000: Sod laid down.
• March 13, 2001: Move-in day for staffers.
• April 2nd, 2001: Stadium dedication.
• April 13th, 2001: Opening Day.

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We might have a roster today, we’ll see. If we do, we’ll certainly break it down for you here.

Last week we let you know we had some fun with a hammer. But now, real progress has been made.

Walls in two SkyBoxes have been completely knocked down, and what was once three separate SkyBoxes is now one mega-Box which will eventually morph into the Champions Club.

We’ll decorate (as you can see below) with a decor of “Great moments in BlueClaws history” and the Champions Club will be open for business beginning Opening Night.

Click here for some more photos from our Facebook page.

For more information on the Champions Club and how you can enjoy a game inside, please click here.

We put some sledge-hammers into walls last night as we have officially started construction on the new Champions Club to open in April. Click the link for more info on how to book the Champions Club.

With a decor inspired by great moments in BlueClaws history, the room will be filled with memorabilia, pictures, banners, and much more.

The mega-PartyBox will include indoor and outdoor seating, climate control, private wait service, and multiple flat-screen televisions, the Champions Club is three times as large as a typical BlueClaws SkyBox and is available for rent during all 70 BlueClaws home games and for private meetings and other events.

Here’s how we started:

And ultimately it will look something like this:

You may have noticed.

We are. As you can see from the photo below, some of the 78 sprinklers that run through FirstEnergy Park have been turned on and are rolling along as we start to water the new grass.

Some of the sprinklers are getting new heads. Some aren’t. But most of them will be on at some point. Simply, the new grass needs some water.

All the grass should be installed at some point today. After that, they’ll do some work on the warning track and infield dirt to grade it exactly with the new grass. They might need to wait for the ground to thaw out for that process to begin, however.

But either way, the field is green and it’s being watered. So that means baseball season is coming soon (120 days to be exact).

UPDATE (3:10): As you can see below, all the grass has been laid down.

With apologies to the great Johnny Mathis.

They started to lay down the grass today at FirstEnergy Park. Ultimately it will be about 90,000 square feet of grass.

Groundskeeper Ryan Radcliffe relays that it’s about the same amount of grass that is used on greens at a golf course.

Each roll of grass (see below) is 4′ wide x 61′ long (or 244 square feet, which means that there will be about 370 rolls used throughout the process.

Obviously, there is a jagged area of several rolls of grass in front of home plate. After they lay down the grass, they’ll go back in with a larger “exact-o” knife and trim it up.

Click here for some photos from today.

The people who are doing this grass installation, Tuckahoe Turf Farms, recently installed sod at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh and Browns Stadium in Cleveland. The football teams do this a couple of times per year.

For more posts on the new playing surface, utilize the category feature (FirstEnergy Park) on the right.