Amanda Finnegan

The Las Vegas 51s game Thursday that featured an early Independence Day celebration brought nearly 12,000 fans, a season high, to Cashman Field. The Salt Lake Bees came out on top, 9-6.

By Ron Kantowski

Thu, Jul 10, 2008 (2 a.m.)

It’s Thursday, which means it’s dollar-beer night at Cashman Field.

But unless the Chicago Cubs show up on short notice or there are leftover fireworks from the Third of July or Christie Brinkley’s divorce proceedings, you should still be able to find a parking space.

That wasn’t the case last Thursday when a giant crowd — for Cashman Field, anyway — of 11,599 turned out to watch the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. Not the ones 51s pitcher Jason Schmidt gave up, but postgame fireworks.

I don’t know what it looked liked o’er the ramparts at the home of the Braves — er, brave. But the ramps leading to the concourse at the home of the 51s were very crowded. There were long lines to park your car, buy a ticket, get a beer, use the restroom.

If you’ve been to past fireworks nights at Cashman, you expected it. Or stayed home. But if you were a rookie, you complained like Bobby Cox.

51s president Don Logan said it all comes back to trying to cram 10,000 baseball fans into a 7,000-seat bag of a stadium. Cashman’s just not set up to handle a crowd larger than that with any degree of comfort, he said.

“When you put that many people in a place not capable of handling it, that’s what you get,” Logan said.

Most complaints were about the parking situation, which is the domain of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, not the 51s. Fireworks fans — and maybe the odd baseball aficionado — were upset to see the “LOT FULL” signs posted when the large parking lot beyond the right-field fence was empty.

You didn’t have to be Tony La Russa to figure out that was by decree of the fire marshal — fireworks droppings and SUV paint jobs just do not mix — but it didn’t say that on the sign. The parking lot attendants, when you could find one, did not direct people to alternate parking areas within a short stroll of the ballpark.

I couldn’t get anywhere near the press lot, but I eventually found ample parking at the Grant Sawyer Building beyond the left-field fence. Of course, I’m smarter than Tony La Russa, because I would never bat my pitcher eighth.

(I should also note that it was the bottom of the second inning before I got in. So upon further review, I’m probably no smarter than Herman Franks.)

When it comes to the nooks and crannies around Cashman Field, there’s something to be said about being an educated 51s fan. There’s also something to be said about seeing two towheaded kids in tears, and their dad trying to explain that there would be no peanuts and Cracker Jack for them, because he’s been coming to games on Tuesday and Wednesday for years and has never seen a sellout.

Next to Jason Schmidt’s pitches, that was easily the saddest thing I witnessed Thursday — especially when I got inside and found dozens and dozens of empty seats.

My knee-jerk reaction was that the 51s should have a policy like that of the perennially sold-out National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center, where fans can purchase a general admission ticket in hopes of finding a no-show seat.

Been there, tried that, Logan said. It doesn’t work on Fireworks Night because a lot of people are interested only in the rockets’ red glare and don’t show up until after the fifth inning.

“We did that years ago,” he said. “It causes more problems than it solves.”

As for the long queues on the concourses, it was hard to tell where the lines for beer and shaved Hawaiian ice and to use the restrooms began or ended. Nothing that a modern $50 million Triple-A ballpark — that could be retrofitted with a dome in anticipation of the day the Florida Marlins move here — couldn’t solve.

While Logan said some fan comfort problems cannot be avoided when there’s a big crowd at Cashman, that doesn’t mean he has thrown up his hands like a third-base coach on a line drive to left field.

When I called his office and told him I had received a half-dozen complaints and asked whether he had gotten any, he could have said no, and the problem probably would have gone away until the next Fourth of July.

But he didn’t, and said there really was no excuse for the breakdown in communication about parking.

“It’s up to us to tell people where to go,” he said.

Because if you don’t, people may wind up telling you where to go.