{"id":37017,"date":"2019-05-15T02:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T02:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=37017"},"modified":"2019-05-15T02:27:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T02:27:00","slug":"sod-poodles-packin-em-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=37017","title":{"rendered":"Sod Poodles packin’ ’em in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This graph showed up on my Facebook page a little while ago, so I thought I would share it on High Plains Blogger.<\/p>\n

Check it out.<\/p>\n

Amarillo’s AA minor-league baseball team, the Sod Poodles, is leading the Texas League in attendance early in its initial season playing ball on the High Plains.<\/p>\n

Sixteen home dates have drawn nearly 100,000 spectators to the Sod Poodles’ shiny new venue, aka Hodgetown, built for about $45 million in downtown Amarillo.<\/p>\n

I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t been to a game. I’ve only seen the ballpark from the other side of the right field fence. The front entrance looks impressive, too.<\/p>\n

I am just delighted to know that Amarillo is turning into a “baseball town.” Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, when residents were preparing to vote on a referendum to approve construction of what was known only as a “multipurpose event venue,” retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney came to the Rotary Club of Amarillo to pitch the idea to Rotarians. He said at the time that “Amarillo is a baseball town” and it deserved to have a Major League-affiliated team playing ball for the fans who had wanted a return to that quality of baseball.<\/p>\n

Matney spoke from a position of deep institutional\/community knowledge, given that he grew up in Amarillo, graduated from the University of Texas and then returned home to carve out a stellar career at Amarillo College.<\/p>\n

It was evident to me then that Matney knew of which he spoke. It’s clearer to me now, seeing those attendance figures, that he was spot on declaring Amarillo to be a “baseball town.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This graph showed up on my Facebook page a little while ago, so I thought I would share it on High Plains Blogger. Check it out. Amarillo’s AA minor-league baseball team, the Sod Poodles, is leading the Texas League in attendance early in its initial season playing ball on the High Plains. Sixteen home dates … Continue reading Sod Poodles packin’ ’em in<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[295,7881,8347,3153,3522],"class_list":["post-37017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news","tag-amarillo-college","tag-amarillo-sod-poodles","tag-hodgetown","tag-mpev","tag-paul-matney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37019,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37017\/revisions\/37019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}