All-Star Weekend was a huge success for the Northern Nevada area. The Fanfest festivities were a great way to kick off the big weekend. The events included appearances by former San Francisco Giants JT Snow, Robb Nen, Steve Finley, and Jack Clark. There were great interactive things for the fans to do as well: Batting cages, test your pitching speed, see how fast you could steal home, and my favorite thing was the whiffle ball home run field they created in the Reno Events Center.
Also something I thought was great was all of the history items that were there about the past AAA All-Star games and the other AAA teams around the nation. I took complete advantage of everything they had there and learned a lot about the AAA baseball level.
The Home Run Derby was great. The hometown crowd was treated with a great performance by not only Reno Aces' player Matt Davidson but a local young talent in Kody Reynolds (McQueen HS Grad & Western Nevada College signee). Kody made it to the second round against other AAA professional players and eventually placed third out of the eight that participated. Davidson (MLB Future Game MVP) ended up being the champion for the hometown.
The All-Star Game itself saw a record crowd turn out at Aces Ballpark (over 10,100). This event as a whole showcased Reno, Lake Tahoe, Carson City, and other communities here in Northern Nevada and brought a lot of positive attention to the area. So much so the AAA executives who attended the weekend event made comments that this was the best All-Star Weekend they have ever attended.
I for one, was proud of the turn out overall by everyone. I was honored and privileged to have attended all of the events (minus the All-Star Game) In my opinion this was a much needed event for the area. It was an economic boost and gave national attention to Northern Nevada in a positive way.
This was a once in a generation event. Reno probably will not see the All-Star festivities come back to the area for a few decades at least. If you ever have a chance to attend an All-Star Weekend I highly recommend it.
I also want to give a shout out to the Reno Aces organization. They did an outstanding job in putting on the events that went without any noticeable hitches. The Reno Aces' General Manager Rick Parr and his staff were top notch. It takes extremely hard work to put on events of this magnitude and they did it as if they had done it many times before. Great work by all!