VIVA EL BÉISBOL
When Ricardo Ruiz Jr. first saw the Columbus Clippers' new Velerosbranded cap, his reaction was strong and immediate.
“I want one of those,” the 8-year-old told his father, Ricardo Sr.
The cap features a skull associated with the celebration of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico, where Ricardo Sr. lived before moving to Dublin in 2009.
Team officials are hoping the
area's Latino community will show equal enthusiasm now that Clippers players will wear the caps and Veleros (Spanish for "sailboats") jerseys during all 11 Friday home games this season at Huntington Park, starting April 5.
It is part of a minor league baseball-wide initiative to attract more Latinos to games. This is the third year of the program, called Copa de la Diversion (the “Fun Cup”), but it marks the first time the Clippers will participate.
“The Clippers are one of our iconic brands, and Veleros is a perfect complement to that brand,” said Kurt Hunzeker, vice president of marketing strategy and research for Minor League Baseball. “This brings in a lot of fun, vibrant colors and can be a breath of fresh air.”
Hunzeker piloted the Copa program in 2017 after seeing studies showing that even though 18.3 million Latinos in America identified themselves as minor-league baseball fans, only 1.7 million said they had attended a game recently.
“There was clearly a disconnect,” Hunzeker said. “And surveys told us that one reason (Latinos) weren’t attending was because they didn’t feel invited. They were saying, ‘It’s not for us, it’s not the music we listen to. It’s not the food we eat.’”
Minor league baseball officials tested the program in 2017 on four teams, located in Charlotte, North Carolina; Kane County, Illinois; Las Vegas and Visalia, California. That expanded to 33 teams in 2018; the number of participants will more than double to 72 this year.
One element of the Copa program is branding, which consists of choosing a Spanish nickname as close to the English name as possible. For the Clippers, that proved problematic because the team name refers to clipper ships, large multi-masted sailing vessels from the 19th century.
“Unfortunately, everything that has to with Clippers (in Spanish) are items like nail clippers, which did not sound too ferocious,” said team president and general manager Ken Schnacke.
The team settled on Veleros. They then gave the logo some attitude, Schnacke said, with a black ship on the jerseys and a “skull and crossbats” on the cap. Recently unveiled Columbus Clippers hats
Schnacke said since the merchandise went on sale on March 18, “we have been filling orders like crazy.”
But just as important as the branding, Hunzeker said, is the outreach. He said marketing studies showed that Latinos didn’t necessarily appreciate when teams would put on a “Hispanic Heritage Night.”
“The feedback we got from that was, ‘Great, we get one day in the sun. What about the other 69 home games?’ And they were right,” he said.
Teams in the Copa program are directed to hold a minimum of three special nights, each of which should include more than just wearing alternate uniforms. To that end, the Clippers reached out to the Hispanic Chamber of Columbus for ideas and help.
“We were really excited to work together and come up with something,” said Estela Salaman, a Hispanic Chamber board member.
Salaman said businesses that are chamber members will help with various aspects on the Veleros nights.
At the April 5 game, the chamber will hold a networking event in the rightfield plaza area where they will
hand out gift bags and have a deejay to play Latino music. In addition, Columbus restaurant Laguna Mexican Street Food & Ice Cream will be on hand.
Schnacke said other aspects of the Copa program will include the team’s Latino players introducing themselves in Spanish on the Huntington Park scoreboard.
Ruiz Sr., 38, said he thinks the initiative is "a cool thing.” He grew up in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, where he said American football and baseball are more popular than they are in central or southern Mexico, where soccer holds sway.
He said he has taken his family — wife, Diana; Ricardo Jr. and Rodrigo, 3 — to Clippers games before and hopes to do so this year on a Veleros night.
Schnacke is optimistic that others will respond to the outreach as well.
“It will be neat to have this alternative identity and neat to get a little more into Hispanic culture,” he said. “And hopefully, we will create some new fans.”