Caroline Kilgallen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
image: https:\/\/www.milb.com\/winston-salem<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With baseball season beginning this past weekend, on Friday, at Truist Stadium, and the Winston-Salem Dash playing the Hickory Crawdads, fans say they are eager to be back behind the familiar home-plate overlooking the large W and S in purple and white. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Dash faced the Hickory Crawdads for its opening game with a turnout of 7,086 fans. There is hope that the team will pick up after their loss of 4-8 to avoid a similar record to last season of 43 wins to 76 losses. With the Winston-Salem Dash\u2019s new management, fans can expect more entertainment and food options than in past seasons, with baseball still the main attraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Andrews, a Winston- Salem mom to three children, loves the experience and tradition of attending Dash games. \u201cThe start of the season reminds me of the excitement of spring and summer. The games are a wonderful place for people of all ages and we have taken family and friends visiting from out of town in order to get a feel for Winston-Salem and enjoy a game,\u201d she said \u201cThe Dash brings our community together night after night.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The new general manager for the Dash, Brian D\u2019Angelesi. is \u201cexcited and ready to go.\u201d Although D\u2019Angelesi has only lived in Winston Salem for a little over two months, he brings experience with minor league teams in Philadelphia and Maryland, such as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, to the job. . D\u2019Angelesi is most enthusiastic for the players to get back on the field. \u201cThese guys are ready to play and the field is prepped,” he said. “We have nine games in ten days to open the season. It’s a lot of baseball!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the new general manager, D\u2019Angelesi is looking to keep the same stadium traditions while also providing fans with more food and drink options and higher levels of service, such as in-seat wait staff. Andrew Murphy, the play-by-play broadcaster at Winston-Salem Dash echoes D\u2019Angelesi\u2019s mission, adding that the theme for the season is that \u201cthere is something for everyone\u201d at a Dash game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a recent podcast, (https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/triad-podcast-network\/downtown-winston-salem-podcast-the-winston-salem-d) D\u2019Angelesi discusses his plans on how to improve the experience of a Dash game, apart from the baseball. Drawing on his past experience, D\u2019Angelesi hopes to make the dash a \u201cone-stop-shop for affordable family fun\u201d by adding nightly themes for the games, adding new food and beverage vendors, and implementing more interactive spaces, such as photography backdrops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAn awareness night and overall themes for each game, something that minor league is well known for nationally but the Dash hasn\u2019t done too much of.\u201d He said the nightly themes, such as glow-in-the-dark or U.SA, were well-loved by many fans from teams that D\u2019Angelesi\u2019s previously worked with and he hopes to implement that same energy with the Dash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Winston-Salem has served as home to minor league teams since 1905. The team has been affiliated with a number of MLB teams but has remained a stable affiliate of the Chicago White Sox since 1997. Playing in several stadiums and wearing multiple names, the previous name being the Winston-Salem Warthogs, the Winston- Salem Dash name came about in 2009 as a reference to the dash in the city\u2019s name Winston-Salem. The following year, the team called Truist Stadium its home field after a fire burned down their former field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the community has enjoyed the offerings of Minor League baseball for several decades, some fans are eager for a change. D\u2019Angelesi\u2019s arrival and new ideas are coming at a good time, some fans are tired of the food and vendor options. Baseball enthusiast James Richard attends Dash games but offers some criticism of the food choices. Richards said \u201cfire the food vendors and do something with the parking. The Grasshopper Team (minor league) in Greensboro has excellent food and tons of choices, comparing the two- the Dash fails miserably.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although D\u2019Angelesi\u2019s ideas of enhancing the experience and adding vendors is strongly supported by some fans, many Winston-Salem residents love the traditional simplicity of the Dash and are able to overlook the. Dash fan and Winston-Salem dad, Jimmy Bonner, states his eagerness for the season to start: \u201cWe are die-hard minor league fans\u2026 the players aren\u2019t overpaid superstars but it\u2019s about crazy fan nights, cheap dates, and watching my kids light up when they get foul balls\u2026 it\u2019s about classic baseball and family fun.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Caroline Kilgallen image: https:\/\/www.milb.com\/winston-salem With baseball season beginning this past weekend, on Friday, at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-semester-spring21","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1733"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1769,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1733\/revisions\/1769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}