Scranton Wilkes-Nightmare: Don't Ever Go There

So we just got back from our Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees trip, and have quite a few updates. Namely, don't ever go there. As some may know, the outing was planned as part of a larger group outing by fans over at Pete Abraham's blog. First and foremost, I have to give a lot of credit to Ron, who was the person who organized the whole outing, and who has had to deal with the logistical nightmare of the Scranton Yankees incompetence.

Allow me to elaborate. We traveled down to Scranton on a beautiful bright sunny day as we had on Sunday, and got there around 2pm for a 5pm game. When we checked into our hotel, I checked my email and saw that the game had been postponed due to unplayable field conditions. Yes, unplayable field conditions on a bright beautiful sunny day. Unsure of what was going to happen to the larger group outing, we basically killed time, which in Scranton is very hard to do. Ron sent several emails updating everyone, and it was decided that a new date would be set for the group outing. It was a good idea since a lot of people were just coming up for the day, and not everyone with tickets would be able to stay until Monday. However, we already had a hotel room that we had checked into and we already had Monday taken off of work so we were committed to staying there. We decided at the time that we would stay until Monday and exchange our tickets for that game. As we're killing time in Scranton we ran into another Yankee fan who had come up for the weekend to watch some games. He told us that it was bright beautiful and sunny on Saturday as well, but that the field has a terrible drainage problem and that's why both Saturday and Sunday's games were postponed. Apparently when they converted the field from turf to natural grass they never changed the drainage system. It also apparently alluded them for an entire year as they used the same park all last season.

So we go to PNC Park around 11am this morning, and they have one guy working the ticket office, who has no idea what's going on and basically tells us to come back at 4pm. We hung around a little while discussing options, and finally went back to the guy and told him to get us his manager. The manager came, and we had it out with him. Basically we were arguing that we came for a larger group outing and paid $32 per ticket to be apart of that, so we needed something of equal value for that nights game. The manager of ticket operations, Jeff, basically said that we could exchange the tickets, but that the food was organized through a different entity and therefore we needed to get the group coordinator to speak with them directly. We asked to speak to someone higher up, and Jeff says they're all in a meeting discussing how to drain the field. It was a fantastic lie. And of course, they won't refund our tickets. Nevermind that we drove 4 hours to see a game and that it was cancelled due to the idiotic drainage system used in the field. If it had been cancelled due to rain it would have been one thing, but it was a bright beautiful sunny day. At that point we left. So basically, we're out for the tickets though Ron said he could get us a refund for the food, and suggested we could sell the tickets. We're not going to bother reselling since instead we're suggesting to everyone not to visit Scranton. Ever. When you can have your game cancelled because it rained two days before, its really not worth the risk, and Scranton is really not a top tourist attraction. You will get bored there. The best thing we experienced was the Marvelous Muggs restaurant. We drove a total of 8 hours to basically pay for a hotel room, visit a strip mall, eat out and play cards until 2 am, all things I could have done at home. So if you're considering a trip to Scranton, don't bother. If something goes wrong you won't find any help at the stadium, and they will pocket your ticket money. Worst part of it all, this trip was a birthday gift.

So between poor customer service, no customer recovery, and being located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that's three strikes the Scranton Yankees can never come back from. Rebecca over at the Purist Bleeds Pinstripes blog mentioned that the team is looking for other fields to play these games at. I'm hoping this leads to a permanent relocation. All they would have needed to do in our case was refund our tickets, and apologize, and we would have been happy. At this point, I will never visit this team as long as it plays games in Scranton. The Trenton Thunder would probably have been a better idea.

What are we at the RJG going to do about it? Well, we have thousands of people who visit our blog every week, and we're going to make sure each of them hear about our adventure. For this week, and this week alone, we are going to give full coverage to the Scranton Wilkes-Nightmare sponsored by PNC Financial Services. When you lend a stadium your name, you should make sure they don't piss off the people that visit. Further more, you can expect some finely written RJG style letters to show up within the week, and probably a phone call to our favorite GM, Bronny Cash. Lets get it on Scranton.