Fisher Cats faithful since the start excited about 20th season
Apr. 9—The New Hampshire Fisher Cats' home opener every spring is a little emotional for the Lavigne family.
Season-ticket holders since day one, Craig, Cindy and their twin daughters, Cooper and Cassidy, consider Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester their vacation house.
As they have ever since 2004, the Manchester residents welcomed the Fisher Cats back for a new season on Tuesday night at the team's home opener against the Somerset Patriots.
New Hampshire, the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, is celebrating its 20th season.
"I always say there's a feeling when you walk in the park that first time," Cooper Lavigne said. "You waited six, eight months for this, and it just always feels like we're going home."
Craig, a lifelong baseball fan, began his connection with the Fisher Cats in October 2003 — about six months before they began play in New Hampshire. He got in line at Gill Stadium — the team's home for its inaugural season in 2004 — on the day before season ticket sales opened.
To Cindy's surprise, others beat Craig there.
So Craig and Cindy split time waiting — they were sixth in line — before they finally reached the ticket booth to buy four season tickets. Their daughters were 3 years old at the time.
"We half-jokingly say we're actually the longest (tenured) people there," Cindy said. "We love going."
Fellow Manchester resident Chuck Magarian, 64, has his sister, Dawn Fuller, to thank for being an original season-ticket holder.
Magarian, a 1978 Manchester West graduate, was out of town that day in 2003 when the Fisher Cats opened ticket sales but wanted them so badly he asked Fuller to wait in line for him.
Until a few years ago, Magarian still had his sister's No. 136 ticket for the line.
Friendships forged
Over the springs and summers the Lavignes have spent with the Fisher Cats, they became friends with fellow season-ticket holders in their section, 104, along with gameday staff and players.
Craig met Bob and Laura Sigman while in line for tickets that day in 2003. The Sigmans, who have since moved to Virginia, became like family to the Lavignes. The Lavignes have visited the Sigmans in Virginia a few times, once around a Fisher Cats road trip to play the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
"The girls, when they were little, we went to Richmond and the Fisher Cats players recognized them from the field," Cindy said.
An umpire who the Lavignes became friendly with helped the family get a photo with slugger Bryce Harper when he visited Manchester as a member of the Harrisburg Senators, Double-A affiliate of his first team, the Washington Nationals.
Craig, an avid autograph collector, has more than 400 signed baseballs, including notables like Harper, Tim Tebow, David Wright and Rajai Davis, in his man cave.
He got all of them signed at Fisher Cats games.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider, a former Fisher Cats manager and player, and former MLB pitchers Danny Farquhar and Tim Collins have had dinner at the Lavignes' house. Some Fisher Cats played Nintendo Wii and jumped on the trampoline with Cassidy and Cooper when they were young.
"Our thing was that these guys are away from home for so long that we just offered it up," Cooper said. "Like, 'Hey, you guys aren't around your family. Do you guys want to come over for a home-cooked meal?' We even had guys that we helped find apartments and would borrow our car for a period of time."
Like Craig Lavigne, John Golabiewski Jr., 55, has been a diehard baseball fan since he was young. Golabiewski, a lifelong Manchester resident, grew up listening to baseball games on the radio with his late grandfather and watching games with his late dad.
"My grandpa, that's all he liked was baseball," Golabiewski said. "He didn't like any other sports."
Golabiewski has had season tickets since the Fisher Cats arrived.
He attended games with his dad, who was also a season-ticket holder. The two watched New Hampshire win both the 2004 and 2011 Eastern League titles.
Golabiewski Sr. died in 2014 but his son still owns the season ticket for his dad's seat right next to him in section 110. "He told me to keep them and I said I wouldn't get rid of either one," Golabiewski said.
The father and son's favorite Fisher Cats game was Kyle Drabek's no-hitter on July 4, 2010.
Golabiewski, a 1986 Manchester Memorial graduate, has a replica championship ring from each of New Hampshire's Eastern League-winning seasons — 2004, 2011 and 2018. The 2004 edition was given to him in a trophy case by the team and now sits under his television.
That first title
Craig Lavigne remembers that the deciding 2004 Eastern League title series game between the Fisher Cats and the Altoona Curve was played at Gill Stadium in rainy conditions in front of about 40 people.
The Lavignes and the Sigmans were among the few fans that had "dinner and den" tickets for that game, dining along the third-base line as they watched the Fisher Cats end their first season with a championship.
The families celebrated the title together afterward at the Puritan Backroom restaurant.
"It was cool because you see a championship and there's no one there," said Craig, an assistant baseball coach at NHTI. "It was crazy."
There were plenty in attendance throughout the Fisher Cats' 2018 Eastern League championship season, when the team was headlined by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette.
New Hampshire, managed that season by Schneider, went 76-62-1, finishing second in the Eastern Division before defeating the Trenton Thunder, 3-0, in a best-of-five semifinal series and the Akron RubberDucks, 3-0, in the Eastern League title series.
"It was very electric there," Magarian said of the 2018 season. "I'd talk to people and they'd be there from out of town for their first game and they were there, basically, to see those three guys. ...The buzz, I don't think you get that with too many minor league teams where you've got three guys that everyone's saying, 'They're can't-miss, they're can't-miss.'"
For Magarian, the allure of the home opener and the new season is simple.
"The faces — not only the players, but the crowd," he said. "Everyone's so happy to have baseball back."