When Anthony Sprague was barely even five years old he saw Luke Skywalker fly through the trenches of the Death Star in an X-Wing, plant a couple proton torpedoes into the weapon of galactic destruction’s exhaust pipe and score a big victory for the Rebel Alliance.
“I didn’t even know what it was about, didn’t even know what was going on but just thought it was the coolest thing,” Sprague recalls over the phone.
This was the genesis of Sprague’s lifelong love of Star Wars, a passion that he and millions of other fans are surely celebrating on Saturday, May the Fourth, the annual celebration of the science-fiction pop-culture phenomenon.
It’s been about 35 years since Sprague was first introduced to The Force, but it has always remained strong with him, even now that he’s the assistant general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays’ triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons.
Channeling this adoration for George Lucas’ creation, Sprague ran the Bisons’ first Star Wars-themed promotion approximately 14 years ago after seeing the class-A West Michigan Whitecaps run one of their own. Sprague claims the Bisons’ Star Wars celebration was the second across all of minor-league baseball.
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“I kind of got my map from them on how to move forward,” he said.
It was a rough going for Sprague’s idea at first, but then in the third year the promo’s potential started to bear fruit and became not just a staple event for the Bisons, but across minor-league baseball.
“Two or three years after [we started doing the promotion] I would have five or six teams calling me asking, ‘Hey, how’d you guys do that?’ And now it’s just kind of blown up,” said Sprague.
It’s exploded to the point that only four triple-A clubs this year have opted not to do a Star Wars-themed promo.
This is a trend seen across all levels of minor-league baseball, but while May 4 is obviously a big day on the Star Wars calendar, it isn’t the only day minor-league outfits choose for hailing the virtues of both the light and dark side.
Looking specifically at the triple-A level, May 4 features the most teams putting on a promotion. Five different clubs will do so Saturday, while 29 others will run theirs on different dates.
Logically speaking, putting something together for May 4 makes the most sense. So why do teams including the Bisons decide to hold their promos on dates other than Star Wars’ big day?
“That’s a big Star Wars holiday, for sure,” Sprague said. “But we’ve built something here around this date in June that we don’t need the ‘May the Fourth be with you’ to tie in and make it a big event for us.”
This year the Bisons will hold their Star Wars Night on June 8, an evening that works for them because it takes place on a Saturday night when kids are out of school and, most importantly, when they can properly fulfill the obligations required when putting on a Star Wars promotion.
If you’ve ever seen a Star Wars promo at a ballpark you might have noticed an air of authenticity about it thanks to official logo design and signage posted around. This isn’t a coincidence.
In order for teams to put on a Star Was-themed night in an official capacity, they must go through Disney and Lucasfilm first with part of the criteria being that a charity must also be involved.
The official involvement of Disney and Lucasfilm is a major differentiator of Star Wars promos, says Sprague.
“If you look at any of the other promotions that teams may do and have to do without an official capacity,” he said. “I know Game of Thrones people are looking to do a lot of that stuff this year but they don’t have the backing of an HBO and they kind of have to bootleg it a little bit.”
“Lucasfilms [has] embraced this,” he added. “They say, ‘This is a commercial for us in 160 different ballparks and cities and we want you do this the right way.’”
For the last 14 years the Bisons have been doing just that, using these Star Wars promotions to not only try to make a few extra bucks, but also show what minor-league baseball is actually about.
“Minor-league baseball needs to be more than just what’s on the field,” said Sprague. “We do have some diehard baseball fans here that are strictly coming just to watch baseball, but you want to create something for your entire family.”
May 4, or any day to celebrate Star Wars, is as good a reason as any to illustrate this.
