‘A preview of things to come’: Wind Surge draw record Wichita crowd at Riverfront Stadium
Jay Miller estimates he guided more than 1,000 tours of Riverfront Stadium when it sat empty in downtown Wichita before a baseball game had ever been played.
The first president of the Wichita Wind Surge used to imagine what the scenes would look like someday when the stadium was full. Families coming together to enjoy the national pastime. The smell of hot dogs, the crunching of peanut shells, the buzz of affiliated baseball back in one of the nicest minor league stadiums in the country with the Wichita skyline beyond the fence and the Arkansas River nearby.
Miller left the organization before the Wind Surge ever played a game, so he never had the chance to experience his dream play out in person. That changed on Tuesday night with Miller back in charge of the Minnesota Twins’ Double-A affiliate.
A crowd of 8,506 at Riverfront Stadium helped kick off a new era of Wind Surge baseball in grand fashion, as Wichita won its home opener against Northwest Arkansas, 3-1, with the highest attendance in the three-year history of the stadium topped off with a fireworks show to conclude the evening.
“It was a very emotional night for me,” Miller said. “I was talking about it earlier and I kind of got choked up a little bit and I had to pull myself together. This is my first time seeing a Wind Surge game here and it’s everything I thought it was going to be and then some.
“Hopefully this is a preview of things to come.”
After ownership changed hands in the winter, Miller was summoned to return to the job he was originally brought to Wichita to do in 2020.
As his first acts of business, Miller lowered the price of entry to Riverfront Stadium and made concession prices more affordable. The changes seemed to be a hit in Tuesday’s debut, evident by a crowd that nearly topped the previous largest crowd for a Surge game by 1,000 fans.
Miller was confident a strong crowd would be in attendance on Tuesday, especially with near-perfect weather. His biggest concern was making sure lines to the concession stands, particularly the $1 hot dog lines, moved quickly and efficiently.
With the help of the Wichita Wagonmasters, Miller said the hot dog sales were a success.
“The lines got long a few times, but we got them moving and they never were overwhelming for us,” Miller said. “You don’t want people standing in line when they’re trying to see a baseball game. The Wagonmasters cooking all of those hot dogs was a super help to us.”
The two basketball courts installed beyond the right-field fence also seemed to be a success with a constant stream of children shooting baskets in the early hours of the evening. The berm seating was also mostly full, as families mostly took advantage of the reduced pricing to enjoy the first ball game of the spring.
Outside of a 13-minute delay for a drone flying over the stadium, the game went off without a hitch and was wrapped up in a tidy time span of 2 hours, 21 minutes.
Wichita starting pitcher Carlos Luna can be partly thanked for the brisk pace, as he struck out 10 of 18 batters in his five-plus innings and allowed just a single hit, a home run in the fifth inning. Wichita and Northwest Arkansas combined for just five hits in the game.
Brooks Lee, the Twin’s No. 1 prospect in their farm system, plated Wichita’s first run in the bottom of the first inning after delivering one of those hits, a lead-off double, and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly to center field by Jake Rucker.
The pitchers’ duel continued into the eighth inning, but the Wind Surge capitalized on some miscues by the Naturals to escape with the win. Lee walked with one out, then advanced to third base on a throwing error that allowed Yoyner Fajardo to also reach base. After Rucker walked to load the bases, Lee scored the winning run on a wild pitch. Aaron Sabato loaded the bases again when he was hit by a pitch, then Pat Winkel drew a bases-loaded walk to score Fajardo and give Wichita an insurance run.
Kody Funderburk and Alex Scherff combined to hold Northwest Arkansas scoreless for the final 10 outs of the game, as the Wind Surge improved to 3-1. Wichita will play Game 2 of the six-game series against the Naturals at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
