Gazette-Times reporter

He won’t be completely satisfied until every game is sold out and there’s a waiting list for season tickets.

For now, though, Corvallis Knights president Dan Segel is satisfied with the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League team’s inaugural season at Goss Stadium, which enters the home stretch on July 26 with the final regular-season homestand.

“I think it’s gone famously, in the field and at the ballpark,” Segel said Monday, speaking via cellphone as he cruised through Seattle while taking five Knights to the WCCBL all-star game in Bellingham.

“The guys have played hard” and are in second place in the West Division despite a slew of injuries that robbed the club of several other potential all-stars.

“To be close to 400 fans a game is a positive. It takes time to build a fan base and it’s our first year. Wenatchee and Bend were in the 200s when they started. Even in the minors they struggle with the mid-week games.

“I don’t think you can compare us to Oregon State,” which averaged a school-record 1,889 fans in the 2007 regular season after winning the 2006 NCAA championship. “They are a known entity, with a lot of equity” the Knights are just beginning to build.

The Knights also went head-to-head with OSU’s televised College World Series games twice in their first homestand, with predictable results.

They’re averaging 394 fans (total 7,088) through 18 home dates, with a high of 1,308 for the July 3 fireworks show against Moses Lake, and a low of 194. That’s a dramatic increase over the 2006 season at Mt. Hood Community College, when the then-Aloha Knights averaged 84 fans, with a high of 138.

The July 3 crowd is the sixth-largest in the WCCBL this season.

“The fireworks night was incredible,” said pitcher Mike Koons, a summer league veteran who played in Hyannis, Mass., in the Cape Cod League in 2005 and in Kenai, Alaska, in the Alaska Summer League in 2006.

“In this league, the fields are a lot better and the towns have gotten behind the teams more” than his previous stops.

“This summer we’re drawing twice as much as we did on the Cape. It was hit-or-miss there, but here it’s been pretty impressive.”

Koons signed with Houston on Tuesday and won’t be with the team for the balance of the season.

The Knights surpassed their 2006 season total (1,691) in their first six games. For WCCBL games, they’re averaging 367 fans and are fifth in the eight-team circuit, trailing Wenatchee (1,237), Bend (852), Moses Lake (843), Kelowna (506) and Kitsap (492), all established franchises with a one- or two-year head start at their current location.

“My conservative target was to average 250, my moderate target was 350 and my aggressive target was 500,” Segel said.

The first two goals have been hit and the third might be possible. The final homestand includes the Zooperstars (July 26), cap night (July 27), Wilson Motors night (Aug. 1) and Fan Appreciation night (Aug. 2), and could draw some large crowds.

“With those four promotions maybe we can get to that 500 mark,” Segel said.

KTHH AM-990 has broadcast almost every game. Doug Blair of Clear Channel Radio of Corvallis-Albany said 20 between-inning sponsorships were sold.

“Twenty-six would have been ideal, but we’re very pleased” with 20, he said. “The sponsors didn’t know a lot about the Knights but once we told them about them they were interested in jumping aboard.

“We’ve been very satisfied with the quality of the broadcasts,” most of which featured OSU football, men’s basketball and baseball announcer Mike Parker.

Segel said Parker gives the Knights instant local credibility.

“Mike has been awesome,” he said. “He’s such a pro and I would think some people are listening because he’s announcing,” even if they know nothing of the Knights. “He’s so enthusiastic, just like when he’s with the Beavers. He’s sort of adopted the team.”

Segel mingles with the fans at home games, taking suggestions and learning what works and what must be changed, dropped or improved.

“Our music has gotten better, we’ve adjusted that and received some positive feedback,” he said. “There were a couple instances where we haven’t been prepared. On the fireworks night we had some seating issues, and that was our fault.

“We can clean up for next year. We’re doing a good job of learning on the job.”

He’s most thrilled with the reaction of the kids, during in-game promotions like the Knights seventh-inning stretch choir, and the post-game run around the bases. His own children, Kaden and Kellen, are ballpark regulars.

“I had a parent tell me, ‘This is just like a minor-league game, with all the fun things,’” he said. “People enjoy the activity and the interaction, the autographs before the games. Running around at the ballpark, that’s been one of the highlights.”

He said there have been no problems with beer sales, which end after the seventh inning. Two alcohol monitors check IDs at the beer stand; those drinking wear wristbands indicating they’re of legal age. The monitors also check the grandstand to make sure no minors are drinking.

“They’ve done a great job,” Segel said. “One night they wouldn’t serve me because I didn’t have my ID,” although he’s obviously 21. “The only (negative) comments I’ve heard are, ‘Why don’t you have a microbrew?’ ” That’s a shortcoming he’ll work with Sodexho to resolve for 2008.

Segel said there will definitely be a 19th year for the Knights and a fourth season for the WCCBL.

“The league isn’t going anywhere and we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I don’t own the club, we’re a non-profit, annually funded and all the major decisions are made by the sponsor,” Penny Knight, the wife of Nike CEO Phil Knight.

“Everything from her has been positive. They are in this thing to develop student-athletes, we’ve been partners for a long time and this is just another step in the partnership.

“Our plan would be to become an institution in Corvallis.”

Koons said his final summer of collegiate baseball has been the best.

“We’re having a great time,” Koons said. “It’s a real advantage to be on a college campus and using Oregon State’s field puts us at a tremendous advantage.

“In this community, everybody already loves baseball.”

WCCBL ATTENDANCE

(League games only)

Wenatchee 1,237

Bend 852

Moses Lake 843

Kelowna 506

Kitsap 492

Corvallis 367

Bellingham 337

Spokane 141