Baseball Team Fights for Survival in Inland Empire League
With attendance lagging, Walla Walla's team management offers free admission to women for weekday games in a desperate bid to keep the city in the league.
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The patronage that the Dayton-Pendleton series receives will determine whether Walla Walla will stay in the Inland Empire League. Manager Burns said he did not want to pull out if there was a ghost of a chance of the receipts and expense columns breaking even. In order to meet fans halfway, ladies will be admitted to the grandstand for weekday games free of charge. Weekday games will also commence a half-hour later, at 3:30 p.m., to encourage higher attendance. Team Captain Bruyette remarked, 'We have a fine lot of ball players together, in fact as fine a lot as I have ever been associated with. We have certainly been up against it this season on account of bad weather and so many other attractions on the outside.'
“We have certainly been up against it this season on account of bad weather and so many other attractions on the outside.”
Minor league baseball teams often struggle with the same economic realities today as they did in 1903. While the gimmick of free entry for women was a standard, if patronizing, promotional tool of the era, the core issue—securing enough local gate revenue to sustain a professional sports franchise—remains a perennial anxiety for small-market cities.
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