Some posts here recently have made reference to how while Ottawa has all but lost its minor-league baseball team, Winnipeg, Manitoba, is one Canadian city whose ballclub is thriving, having drawn more than 300,000 fans for the fourth year in a row. (That Lynx probably drew half that despite having 25 additional home dates.)
Turns out the Goldeyes have a bit of an attendance problem themselves -- local boob Bryan Benson, who's determined to attend Goldeyes games and cause problems.
At least that's how the Goldeyes and some fans sitting near him saw it at a game last month, when Benson, 56, was arrested and banned from future games after being rather vocal. Benson's newspaper-page persona does give off a crackpot/publicity whore vibe (he was once a fringe candidate for Mayor of Winnipeg), but he claims he wasn't being loud, wasn't drunk and wasn't disorderly.
As you might expect, he's threatening lawsuits against anyone who has authority over anything within a 10-block radius of the Goldeyes' home ballpark.
Last weekend, Benson apparently spent $2,200 Cdn to travel to Calgary to heckle the Goldeyes. Rogers Sportsnet put a mike on him, and about the worst thing he was recorded saying was, "You bum!" So his hecking is apparently quite lame, but in a sense you have to admire a guy who spends $2,200 Cdn on a point of principle.
Winnipeg is a conservative city, but it's hard to imagine that fans and management would take such great offence to Benson yelling trite insults. So it's more likely the guy turned into an angel when everyone was watching his act.
Related:
Stop Lamenting The Lynx Already... Say Hello To The Capital Bandits (Mon., Sept. 4)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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