John LaRoy, CEO of Apparel Redefined, and Bill Waliewski, General Manager of the Windy City ThunderBolts, discuss building community through branded apparel, the significance of community engagement, and civic pride in minor league baseball. They emphasize entertaining the community through home games and creating a sense of belonging and pride among fans, players, and the wider community.
John and Bill also share insights into sports merchandising, highlighting the need to balance fan satisfaction with business considerations. Additionally, they emphasized the importance of prioritizing fan experience in sports venues, including quality experiences on slower nights, and treating customers like a privilege.
Key Highlights
• Baseball, real estate, and the Thunderbolts frontier league team. 0:02
• Sports merchandising, team culture, and fan engagement. 8:31
• The importance of quality swag in minor league baseball. 17:14
• Fan experience, quality products, and staff training in minor league baseball. 22:30
• Building a successful business through teamwork and continuity. 31:17
Presentation Transcription
Curt Anderson 00:02
Hey, well hello there jangled Roy from apparel redefined how are you today? My friend?
John LaRoy 00:07
Great Curt.
Curt Anderson 00:11
Hey, I’m doing great. So couldn’t man what a beautiful day. Wonderful summer in speaking a summer. How about John, you baseball fan by any chance?
John LaRoy 00:19
Oh god. Yeah. You know at current.
Curt Anderson 00:21
I think we’re you know, we’re just a little bit of baseball junkies, if you will. So what an honor what a privilege. We got Bill Waliewski, the Assistant General Manager of Windy City Thunderbolts Bill, how are you, my friend, thank you for joining us.
Bill Waliewski 00:37
Well, I really get invited anywhere. So guys, I’m really thrilled to be here. But no, it’s good. Everything’s good. Everything’s good. We’re actually on on the into the second half of our season. So it’s got about a month ago. It’s crazy how fast he goes. Well,
Curt Anderson 00:55
awesome. You know what? So let’s start off right there. And let’s, you know, for folks out there, thunderbolts, just share a little bit about the team. Who are you, I knew you’re in the frontier League. Just if somebody’s not familiar with the team just give us a little foundation of what’s going on with the Thunderbolts.
Bill Waliewski 01:09
Thunderbolts are members of the frontier League. This is the frontier leagues independent, professional baseball league. We are an official partner League of Major League Baseball. We have been in the frontier league for 26 years now. And we’re located in Crestwood, Illinois, not too far from from John’s office. And we play, we play 96 games every summer. And our people are always curious about our league, our league, the frontier league is made up of 16 teams and we are from the Midwest. Three teams here in the Chicagoland area team down by St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Evansville, Indiana, Florence, Kentucky, and then we have a whole whole group of teams out on the on the east coast as well into Canada. So it’s a real League, it’s, it’s a lot of travel. And, you know, we every year we we ended up we’ve already had one guy signed to a affiliated affiliated contract with the Tampa race. Every year, we got a couple three guys guys signed, and that’s why we’re here, we’re here for those guys that the players that were overlooked, or have had a chance and injury or just bad luck and bad timing. You know, they’re no longer in affiliated baseball, you know, we’re for first and second chances, then sometimes thirds. So, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun to be around the game. And, you know, it’s great to that, you know, minor league baseball, it’s no secret, it’s community endeavor, right? So it’s just great to be a part of this Crestwood community in the South Suburban community and, you know, be able at 48, to home games a year to, to entertain folks and get their mind off other things and enjoy the summer.
Curt Anderson 03:03
Well, man, I absolutely love that. And again, you know, multiple things you just mentioned, you’re bringing together your community. You know, it’s a nice alternative for folks that, you know, you know, I know if you guys have you’ve seen inflation anywhere, there’s like prices a little bit high. So sometimes it’s nice, you know, if you can’t hit the major league games, it’s great going into these alternatives, and just what an admirable, you know, mission that you guys provide for those first, second and third chances. But let’s go here. So you know, as baseball fans that we are, what a wonderful career that you’ve paid for yourself in his in his field. Now, if I understand correctly started off in real estate, just you’re just dying a little, you know a little bit about you. How do you go from your real estate to diving into the baseball world? I’ll
Bill Waliewski 03:46
try and give you the short version. Because yeah, it’s goofy, right? So I had a 23 and a half year career in commercial real estate. I’ve worked for two firms over that time, the last, the second company I worked for I was there for 13 and a half years. And if I put the two years prior to my leaving, I give it some thought as to moving on and doing something out within commercial real estate. And it just seemed time and that’s where the long part of the story comes in. But I’ll spare for you. I I just I feel like the gentleman that I worked for was an absentee owner, I philosophically I didn’t think we were on the same page anymore. And so anyway, so I turned in the resignation and and tried to give him three weeks notice three weeks turned into three months. And my plan to just go spend the summer with my kids because I figured they were young and it was the last time I’d be able to do that and didn’t quite work out that way. So I stuck around and made the transition a little more easy for everybody. And while that was going on, John and I have a mutual friend actually who was retired and the wealthy individual and he said, I’ve got a bunch of investigation. You’re not doing anything and you’re winding down here and he handed me a stack of investment opportunities that he was looking at. He said, I don’t really have time to vet through these. Tell me if there’s anything that you think would interest me, and the top three were baseball teams, and tried to be tried to be brief ended up in Joliet, he purchased what was left of the Joliet jackhammers, who unfortunately went bankrupt. And then we rebranded a team down there called the Joliet swamis, which is still in the frontier league. And I was there for two years, he sold the team and trying to fast forward through it, I ended up here in Crestwood, 10 years ago, and I’m still in baseball. So it’s it was a strange, strange route to get here, but love that I’m here.
Curt Anderson 05:55
Well, that God bless you, man, that is just so inspiring. Sure, love, you know, for a sports fans, you know, we show up to the games, we enjoyed the hotdogs, the snacks, the entertainment, the players on the field, share a little bit, you know, we probably all take for granted as fans, we take it for granted the baseball side of things, share a little bit of, you know, behind the scenes, you know, because like you’re, you’re you’re putting out this wonderful entertainment for us. What’s it like on your end?
Bill Waliewski 06:21
Well, if we do it right, exactly as you described, it should, you should think that it was effortless, and that the gates opened and everything was ready. And if we, you know, you have 48 of them, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have days where things go wrong. You know, ballparks got a lot of moving parts to it, things break down and whatnot. But yeah, if we’re doing our jobs, you know, the biggest thing is, and I tell this to our interns and everything where people may or may not know, the hours are absolutely brutal. And, and they start the way we run our business, which nobody from Harvard Business School is coming in here and saying, Wow, what a great model. We’ve run it very lean. And mean, there’s only five full timers here, and everybody works her tail off. And it, the only way it works is it if you have five people really dedicated to your mission and what you’re trying to accomplish. We’re fortunate that we have that. That said, you know that the hours, you know, we started here at nine o’clock, we’ll probably be home by 2am. And that’s pretty much a 48 game days. The other thing is, you know, at our level, the way to make money is to, you know, you gotta you gotta have the facility busy all the time, especially in Chicago, when we really only have a window, called up March to end of end of October, where the field is usable just because of weather conditions. So the ballparks always humming. Somebody’s always got to be here. It’s so if I’m taking you behind the scenes, I’m taking you into a place where there’s not a lot of sleep. In the summer. There’s a lot of activity, a lot of energy. And you know, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. I even for somebody my age, you know, you’re like a kid in this job. And my wife likes to call me the world’s largest eighth grader. Maybe I am. That’s okay. Right. So we got to be a little bit of a kid to do what we
John LaRoy 08:31
Well, Curt want to chime in, please. Bill is being a little humble here. It they put on an unbelievable show. I mean, these guys, you talked about hustling and running around. He’s on the field he’s doing, you know, in between any promotions he’s doing in between any games and contests, he’s on the mic. It’s amazing what they do. And you said earlier about the community to, you know, coaching high school baseball, playing baseball in the area, you know, they used to be the Cook County Cheetos when I first started and one of my coaches played for them. I had four or five guys that I play ball with play for thunderbolts and win the championship a long time ago. And it is really a community because I mean, that stadium is humming. I mean, you know, if I stood on my roof, I could see the the facility and from the high school baseball games and travel tournaments, the Little League events, I mean, that place is always rockin. And it’s really cool because I feel like the community around here really does embrace it. Regardless of the economic situation, they really have a good following. And I really do feel that there’s a direct representation of the experience at the ballpark that Bill and his team really do a phenomenal job of putting it on because I’ve been all over the country. And we all you know, travel ball when you’re playing as a kid. And most of your travel ball tournaments are not at least now or at least before they were not in big cities, they were in minor league times, and got to see a lot of minor league ballparks and what they got going at Windy City is truly special. Well,
Curt Anderson 10:10
I absolutely love and that’s great getting your perspective, John, because you’re, you know, from a fan perspective, and you know, you have a business relationship with Bill. So Bill, as you mentioned, you know, five full time employees, you guys are cranking from March until October, you know, just all in and again, you know, for, you know, those seasonal type businesses like, you know, you’ve got to milk it, you know, every opportunity. You’re building community, part of building that community, is that civic pride? And, you know, in a lot of times, that’s what our sports teams, you know, do they provide that civic pride with, you know, with that comes, you know, the baseball hats, the sweatshirts, the T shirts, how important is it from your perspective, as far as like, you know, having that fun apparel? Seeing those little kids out there? What are your thoughts there?
Bill Waliewski 10:53
Well, nothing, I get a huge kick out a funny mentioned the other day, a former employee of ours, who is just just a great dude sends me a picture from a restaurant that he’s at. And the guys were in a windy city Thunderbolts hat, right. And I love that. So I, my wife and I were at Sam’s Club. I think this was two years ago, it was in the offseason. And there’s a guy coming down with a windy city Thunderbolts hat and a sweatshirt on. And so we make eye contact, and I think he recognized me with just high fived and just kept going about our way, I guess, it’s great. It’s awesome. I love when, when we, you know, people buying our stuff or wearing it out and about, you know, when we don’t see it at a game, when we see it just, you know, in random places, I think I get it, you know, I get a huge kick out of that. So, yeah, merchant merchandising is a is a big deal. For us. And we’ve been, we’ve been fortunate here in the last, oh, I don’t know, five, five years or so that we’ve been able to grow that end of our business a little bit, and we’re little, we suffer from two problems here. One, the score is incredibly small. Number two, and talking to some of our, my colleagues in our league, they all suffer from this. Just never enough storage space at a secure secure storage space. Right. I, if I moved here, you probably there’s some boxes behind me that are stored in here, because that’s the only place I got to put them right now. So yeah, it’s, it’s a huge part of it. And, and building that community. And, and, and not only civic pride, but you know, pride and pride in the team that that that we are and, you know, it’s great to see the fans embrace our merchandise. I
Curt Anderson 12:54
love that. So you know, just to kind of pick it back and again, so let’s get into the entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs mind, if you would, you know, save where you started, you know, you mentioned you’ve been at Windy City for 10 years, you know, if you would go back and give yourself any advice? Or maybe there’s a bill out there that’s coming into a team for the first time. What kind of advice would you share for folks, you know, or maybe even that new entrepreneur who’s like, you know, hey, you know what, I’d like to get my team in uniforms or you know, get the swag going and get that, that energy, that excitement, any any advice that you would share with folks in that same position? Wow.
Bill Waliewski 13:31
So just before I answer that, so I inherited the the store in 2017. Man, that’s just kind of the way it works around here, just like hey, the, the gal who left the store or ran the store lab, so here’s, here’s that. And that’s how I ended up with the onfield promotions too, you know, it’s just, it’s just the way it goes. So, I mean, listen, I know what I like, I know what I like to wear. You know, you got to you got to think outside that box. So right, because, you know, you know, I’ve been wearing the same stuff since 1993. Essentially, my style hasn’t changed. And I you know, one iota that that sports merchandising is you know, trendy or anything, it’s a lot of the same stuff but my, my biggest thing was we had to fuse fuse. Number one, so we had we just didn’t have enough individual items. You know, we had we had a t shirt and we had one sweatshirt and, and and somewhat limited hat. So we it didn’t happen overnight. I it took me time to figure out what the right mix was for the sides of our store. I had always been told, hey, no, you can’t buy that. You can’t. You can’t sell that stuff. Our fans won’t pay that price. For a higher end sweatshirt, let’s say you know they’ll never bent over $50 versus a sweatshirt. One year, we said, Roger said, well, we’ll we’re gonna give that a try, we’re gonna put a higher end sweatshirt out there. And it’s sold out. And then I put another, you know, so, it, the only advice I have is just keep at it, I have no retail experience whatsoever. You know, I, I’d like to think that, you know, I give some thought as to where items are placed and, and those types of things. But it’s, it’s been a lot of trial by error along the way, but, you know, if I may would like having vendors like John, where I can say, hey, I’m looking for a high end piece, you know, a high end pullover something that the players would like to wear and something like the fans would like to have because the players aware, but you know, and, and, and be able to produce that quickly, and get it out there. We did that last year with a with a with a black, petted pullover that, you know, we’ve already ordered in a second time. So you know, I think that’s a long, long way to get at, you know, trust your instincts, you’ll develop them over time. And if your instincts tell you, hey, yeah, they will pay a little bit more for a nicer item, as was the case with, with me. You know, just trust your instincts a little bit. And you can, don’t be afraid to fail.
Curt Anderson 16:33
Yeah, I love that. John, if you want to chime in here for a minute, because cuz a couple of things going on here, Bill is, you know, your, your, your uniforming your players, you know, your players are walking billboards, and you know, again, that fan, ammonium, you’re rooting these guys on and you know, we’re into swag. But you’re also from a business standpoint, it’s a profit center for you. You know, so it’s like uniform in your team in the culture, the look, you know, all that, as well as man, how can I make some money? John, as you’re working with sports teams could be the lowly team down the street, could be you know, the high school team, that type of thing could be cheerleading, whatever it might be all the way up to Bill’s level would any any input that you want to share her.
John LaRoy 17:14
I feel like, you know, the buzzword is swag. And it’s it’s taken over. My dad, my dad, and a lot of my summers were spent at St. Xavier University, which is a local, local college here, Catholic College, and they just redid their field. And what they have there is a really strong alumni group from my dad’s era that is getting back involved and were involved. And now they want you know, they’re bringing the former coaches, John bowls who coach in the major leagues for a while and director of player personnel and a couple different stops, and he’s coming back to rededicate the field. But what I’m getting at is a bunch of the guys were out there working on the field, and there was a bunch of travel baseball going on, because now they got the turf field and they can make some money off it. And he’s in a couple of my dad’s buddies who have been out of the game moved down to Florida. They’re like, man, these kids look really good. But the quality of baseball is horrible. He’s like, they have unbelievable uniforms. You know, something that they never had grown up and pretty, it’s like, they look really good, but it just doesn’t translate we always said look good play good, but it is it is I mean, we see it at the high school level, you know, it’s part of the recruiting game now and even you know, Bill’s level two like you got you got X Major Leaguer pretty respected guy had a really long career here in Chicago, Bobby Jenks. And it’s like that level of hey, I’m expecting this type of look feel function. And it’s kind of crazy because you see in the major league now with what happened with Nike, and fanatics quality’s not there at the major league level you know they have pants and ribbons should see through they changed from Under Armour and Nike majestic all these things are the last names on the bed last names are two inches instead of three the numbers are too small all this shit that would like we would get rejected on our end at the major league level but anyhow, it is really important because if you’re not doing it your competition is you know, and it’s just crazy it happened this way we get we get an email from God escapes me the Massachusetts team in frontier League.
Bill Waliewski 19:40
Oh, rockin knockout through New England knockout,
John LaRoy 19:43
New England knockout? Yeah, hey, we saw what the Thunderbolts are wearing. We want that too. So you know, it’s like, it’s just the reputation kind of precedes itself. If it looks good, if it if it makes sense people want it. And you know, and that obviously will translate into retail sales, but As you know, there has been more of a focus even in this tough economy where people don’t have as much disposable income as they did four or five years ago, there still is that perceived and real aspect of make a purchase, I want it to be quality, and you can just inherently feel if something’s good, and you’re willing to pay for it, if you see it on the field, and your favorite players are wearing it. Because it bill, like you said, like, at this level of baseball, you have absolute loyalists, you know, like that they’re season ticket holders that have been for 15 years. And Bill does a really good job of keeping that community connected and activated. And that’s very, I’d say, not unique, but it’s an essential part of minor league baseball. And one way to really connect with those people is swag, and wear to the games, they wear it out. And that’s the best form of advertising there is when you see something in Sam’s Club and they’re wearing the Windy City, WC helps, and they’re not going to wear it, if it doesn’t look good. If it doesn’t feel good.
Bill Waliewski 21:02
Well, I can I can speak firsthand to like, you know, having three kids that went through high school or the one, the last one is on his way out, after this year. This coming year, they all play sports, and you know, the amount of swag that is available. I mean, as soon as they make the team, you know, the email goes out and, and, you know, I’m a sucker for it. Because I know what I played. Like, we didn’t have those options, you know, we’ve maybe got one, one cool thing that you could wear or a jackets or whatever. Now, you know, Hey, you want you want to drive fit, you want the you want the sweatpants, you want the running pants, we got that we got a polo shirt, we got it Ba ba ba ba ba ba it’s crazy. And and I buy all of it. Like it’s so. And but, but and the reason being I know how, how, how cool that would have been when I was a kid to have I made the team and now I have stuff from being on that team, you know? So, and yeah, it’s same same applies here. Everybody wants quality stuff. And, and especially if you make that connection with the team, it’s, it’s a big deal. Yeah.
Curt Anderson 22:29
Especially for guys, like you said, you know, we take pride and learn something from 30 years ago. And you know, our spouse might be like, you know, Hey, are you getting rid of that? Are you like, Are you kidding me? This is in perfect condition. You know, you can barely read anything on it. But it’s just comfort, you know. So when you buy that quality product, I love how you mentioned earlier bill, how you experimented and you’re like, you know, when you convince yourself, Oh, hey, the fan won’t pay or buy this. And then you’re like, hey, you know what, let’s just take a shot. It’s a minor investment. Let’s see what happens. If, you know, we’ll have a bigger I told you so party at the end, if I’m wrong. How’s that? You know, so kudos to you for stepping out of their comfort zone. And China, I wanted to tie into here and I want to talk about, you know, I like that fans first or like that customer loyalty. You know, because and again for, you know, for sports, you know, we don’t as fans, we don’t always think of it as a business, right? Really, it’s like, hey, I want to come in and I want to get my hot dog, I want to do that thing. But you know, there’s all these people behind the scenes, creating that experience, how a windy city, your team of five, you mentioned a dedication, you know, nine in the morning till two at night, but just share a little bit of like how important it is, from your perspective, when you bring on new teammates of having that fans first mentality.
Bill Waliewski 23:42
So that’s the hard part for I always find each year is so we get we get a college 15 to 20 interns. Okay, each year to a wonderful internship. I think everybody should work in a ballpark or a sporting venue at some point in their life. I think, even if it’s just for a summer. I think I think it’s just a cool thing. It’s an eye opening thing. The hard part is to get them to buy in it to understand first you got to make them understand, right. And I always try to appeal to them as okay, we’ve all been fans, right? We’ve we’ve all been at a sporting event at a concert or whatever it is. And, you know, you have to you have to look at it from the lens of when I’m sitting in that seat or I’m entering the ballpark What do I expect? And and if I think if you kind of put it through that lens a little bit, and then tell them well here’s our vision. This is what we want this to be, you know fan friendly, clean ballpark. I would say a clean ballparks a happy ballpark. All you know you you know just I’m just giving you a couple of nuggets. You But, you know, it’s putting that all together and creating that, you know, fan first environment, like, we always like to, or I do like to sit down with the interns and say you’re gonna be on a kind, of course, and you’re gonna be wearing one of our shirts. You’re an expert in people’s minds, you know, where this is, you know, where that is, you know, an early on, it might be okay to say, I don’t know, I’ll ask somebody or I’ll get you that answered. But, you know, most commonly in our ballpark anyway. Where’s the restaurant? Right? So they, they need to know, they need to, you know, it’s just just little things. But I think getting people to understand what we’re trying to do here, and that it’s family friendly. First of all, it’s a safe, fun place. And the other thing, that this is what means the most to me, somebody we have a we have a game tonight, we’re gonna have a couple of 1000 people in here. Those people, every one of them decided that tonight on a Friday night. In the summer. There’s only about five, six months a year worth living here in Chicago weather why? On this Friday night, they took their hard earned money and spent it to go to a windy city Thunderbolts game. What do we compete with movies, restaurants, waterpark, street festivals, concerts, are a lake out, right? All of it, right? And then and then you take all those things, and then you condense them all into the summer, when again, it’s the only time worth being around here is, you know, weather wise. I think that is a it, you know, I would say it’s a privilege to work in a ballpark number one. But the other thing is that you have to realize that those people had a lot of other options. And that’s, that’s a, it’s our responsibility to make sure that they got their money’s worth, and that it was money well spent. And we and they had they had a good time here. And so yeah, I mean, that’s there you go. Right. And, and it’s what’s rewarding is when you see your game day staff assures your security people, when they all start to understand it, and it all comes together. That’s, that’s a great thing. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to result in Happy, happy fans.
Curt Anderson 27:42
That’s magic. So Bill, first off, I’m giving a round of applause. That was beautiful. That was elegant. That was poetic. I just I think it’s a privilege. You know, even staying home and watching Netflix or playing video games is your competition, right? I like and I I couldn’t admire and love what you just said more of our fans have so many different options, yet they chose to spend their quality time, like you said in probably five months is probably being generous, right? It’s been about three months, good weather. And they’ve they’ve decided John, you’re doing it tonight to string your their family to your facility. And Bill just hats off to you on how you’re teaching these young people. These interns, I would love to talk to your interns because you know, you’re laying the foundation of like how they’re going to be in their professional lives. And they’re, you’re given them just great. A great foundation working at your at your organization.
Bill Waliewski 28:40
Yeah, well, and, you know, one of the things they got another thing I like to instill upon them it you know, if if Tuesday and Wednesdays in minor league baseball, right. It’s tough for restaurants. It’s tough for a lot of businesses Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesdays, you know, and that’s probably going to be our lighter crowds of the week. You know, that those people that are there, they deserve the exact same show and the exact same energy in this exact same attention than if we had, you know, 3500 in here. Yep. Right. So, I mean, that, to me, that’s another important thing that, you know, as an organization at our level, I think that you really have to install pump people because it’s not, it’s not anybody’s fault, who came in on a Tuesday and bought four tickets for their family. Right? That they don’t, they don’t get our best, right. So yeah, it’s it’s, I think it’s a constant. It’s just it’s a constant reminder of philosophy and everything but like I said, when it comes together, it’s, I always I always tell her insurance you know, when it comes together on a given night You won’t need a car to get home, you’ll just slide on. He just had an adrenaline. You know, it’s really it’s really cool because you know, you did a great job. You know, people have fun, you see on smiling, smiling faces on the way out. That’s the reward. It isn’t a thunderbolts, when I hit that date to break it to people, I love it. And to me, any night, we’re in the game in the bottom of the ninth inning, and people are on the edge of their seat or on their feet. That’s good enough for me. As long as again, we but we can’t control that what we can control is how we treat people, the quality of the food, the lines, and our in our, you know, between evenings, promotions, the music we’re playing, those are the things we can control. I leave it to Bobby jadestone worried about the rest of though, but, and some nights? Yeah, they’re gonna they’re gonna lose seven, one and get two hits. Can’t do anything about it. Right.
Curt Anderson 30:53
But you can still but you can still provide a great night. So absolutely, Bill, that was just such an inspirational little rant right there. Love it. John, let’s take it home. Because I know we want to wrap up by the time because I usually keep us. So John, what are your parting thoughts as a fan as a business partner here with our friends at the Thunderbolt? What are your thoughts this conversation? Oh,
John LaRoy 31:16
I mean, we talked about this almost every episode, right? You know, the product service experience model of a business. Right? And I was exactly thing what Bill was was talking about where I can’t even imagine like being in a business where you don’t have control over your product, right? You know, like, you have three dynamics there, you got, you got the service, which you can control, you got the experience, which is an off, you know, a byproduct of your service, but the product is just you can’t do anything about it. Right. And that’s, that’s really tough, but it is unique, you know, and, you know, forth.
Bill Waliewski 31:51
I can’t do much about the weather, either. Yeah.
John LaRoy 31:55
For sure. But you can totally tell us, you know, it’s one thing to talk about, it’s another thing to live it and experience it. And Bill and his team do a really good job there. And yeah, that is that is totally dynamic, because you can’t just point the finger and say the team on the field didn’t do so hot, you know, so the fans had a bad experience. It has to be the other way around. And it’s just, it’s unique. Because you take those lessons in baseball, we talked about baseball is a microcosm of life. It’s continuing teaching people. And I talk a lot about that in business. Right. And, you know, I think Bill, we said, we said Pete Rose before this thing started here. And it could just kind of populated a quote, but I think it was him. But I could be wrong. My day would kill me if I’m not, but I’d walk through hell on a gasoline suit just to play bass. And, Pete, I know you don’t really like the guy, but he did love baseball. And I feel like your people in what you do they’re your people walk through Hell in a gasoline suit to deliver a great fan experience at Thunder Bowl stadium. And my my core people here, I’ll tell you what, I don’t think they’d walk through Hell in a gasoline suit to make T shirts. But to build a business and to build a team. That’s what we do here. And
Bill Waliewski 33:16
yeah, it’s one thing. One thing I would add, yeah. And I see this other with other teams in our league or other minor league teams that that I are that I’m familiar with. Yeah. The ones that are doing well, or that are really putting out a good presentation. I have have one. One thing for sure. in common. And that is continuity of staff. And that’s a one thing we’ve been very fortunate here are our GM, Mike for shaved he’s worked here since he was 16 years old. So he was here the first day he walked in as a 16 year old and said I want to be a part of this. Yeah. And he’s been here ever since. So you know, I mean, he there isn’t a there isn’t a nut or a bolt or you know, anything in this ballpark. He doesn’t know where it’s at. And then the rest of us I’ve been here 10 years Johnny has been here eight year care Karen started out as a as a doing game day stuff. And now she’s a full timer and then our last employee, the young kid who was an intern for us one summer and ended up with a full time job. Continuity, I think in the building a business as best you can, you know, the old saying that there isn’t anybody who isn’t replaceable. Me? Well, you own your own business, John, are you probably not very replaceable but you know as employees and that that is true to an extent but you You know, it does sometimes come with some pain, temporary pain and loss of revenue or whatever. But if you can minimize that, as best you can and keep people employed, keep them happy. At least at least in our business, boy, the teams that struggle are the ones that change GMs every two years. Yeah. And every time they come in, they’ve got to learn the market, learn, learn how the game is played, you know, in terms of the local community and all that. So I just I, I had to throw that out there because it’s something that, that over the years, I’ve really noticed that continuity is a real date. As long as you have the right team, of course, continuity is a big, big deal. Well,
Curt Anderson 35:47
great point. And that stands for business owners as well. That consistency, continuity. Teamwork, you know, fans first, treating your customers like a privilege. I just man, just tons of golden nuggets here today, Bill. John, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share as we close out?
John LaRoy 36:06
No, just excited for a game tonight. Taking my take my boys it will be the first first Windy City game for my youngest son Tommy. Not excited about that. And wow. Yeah. Awesome,
Curt Anderson 36:18
awesome stuff. So all right. Tons of great information here. Anything that you miss, go back, hit the rewind button. We’re going to be getting this shared out for you, Bill. Thank you. We appreciate you. We applaud you commend you for the wonderful work that you’re doing for friends at Crestwood. And just keep up the good work, my friend, very inspiring. John, we’ll be back here next week with another wonderful guest and we’ll catch you guys soon