Sky Sox: an 0-7 count and lights on all night

QUESTION: What’s wrong with the Sky Sox scoreboard and when will it be fixed? "7 balls?"
- T.J. Olson

ANSWER: Sure enough, on opening weekend there was a strange count on the scoreboard: 0-7. Mike Hobson, director of public relations, says that although there was regular maintenance work on the board during off-season, it is aging and they’re “applying Band-Aids” as things happen. This is one of those Band-Aid situations until a specialist who knows how to work on the scoreboard can be brought in. “It’s not like a light bulb,” Hobson said. “It might be an electrical problem, it might be a circuit problem. We’re trying to get it fixed as quickly as possible.” It will cost several hundred thousand dollars for a new scoreboard, which was not part of the major renovation the Sox just completed.


QUESTION: Why do the Sky Sox leave their lights on all night? We live near the stadium and when they have an evening game and a game the next day, they leave the entire set of lights on all night. It seems to me that they could do their maintenance of the field with half the amount of lights and save the city some money on their electric bill. I would suggest they could turn off the east and west banks of lights and still get their job done.
- Tom Callaghan

ANSWER: Thousands of people leave behind a lot of trash and it takes hours to clean up after a game, according to Mike Hobson, director of public relations. As you said, the lights are left on when there’s an evening game followed by a game the next day. He says for the most part they try to turn off the outfield lights but leave on the infield lights for the cleaning crew so they can get their work done.