Fans of the Rockford Rivets have enjoyed the very unique experience of collegiate baseball players from all over the country coming to Rockford, Illinois this summer to compete in the Northwoods League. What they may or may not realize is that the experience is made as enjoyable as it can be by many hardworking staff members.

If you are reading this, it means that you first picked up a ticket from either Jack Cooke or Julia Galvan in the ticket department. Once entering the gates, a member of the Rivets front office staff likely greeted you at the front gate with a program in hand. Those programs are the work of the media-relations department at Rivets Stadium. Jackie Becker designs everything within the program, as well as captures the players’ photographs for their bios throughout the entirety of the 24-page (including front and back covers) book. Within those programs are inserts with rosters and statistics. The voice of the Rivets, BJ Walters, along with webcast director Amy Page and the entire marketing department (Teagan Vogel, Shane Wood, and Colton St. Vincent) take the printed copies, fold them to fit the size of the programs, then stuff them so you can impress your friends with knowledge of the game as the competition unfolds in front of you.

While that is going on, stadium voice Brett Myhres is writing out scripts for public address announcements, between-inning promotions, and in-game events with the help of the aforementioned marketing department.  One of the scripts is sent to the Rivets control room just beside the VIP bar, where Eric Krueger now has the task of organizing the video board for the game.

While these things are important, the fans are there to watch the game. That is where Nick Zwieg, Ethan Lengjak, and the entire operations department (Katherine Prusator, Dominique Lynch, Adam Carpenter, and Kevin Christensen) prepare the field as well as get everything ready for both sets of players. This includes setting up water in both dugouts and make sure that the entirety of the stadium is as clean as possible.

Once the game begins, the fun never ends. Vogel, Wood and St. Vincent put together the on-field activities and are in constant communication with Myhres to get everything from the first pitch to the Rivets run at the end of the eighth inning to run smoothly. Meanwhile, Page and producer Yemi Sosina are putting together a masterpiece of a webcast for Northwoods League TV by constantly updating statistics, changing cameras, and giving viewers who are not at the game the full experience as though they were there.

The Rivets have made it enjoyable for fans in their inaugural year, but none of it would be possible without the hard work of the intern staff and front office, who make it a point to have you begging to come to another game by the end of the night.