From the archives: Fans line up for LI Ducks debut tickets

This story was originally published in Newsday on February 27, 2000

Mary Jane Lubrone could not believe what she saw.

"What are these people, crazy?" she asked. "These are the Long Island Ducks! It's not the Yankees. It's the Ducks!"

The Dix Hills resident arrived at the Huntington Hilton on Route 110 around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, a half hour after tickets for the first three home games of Long Island's newly minted minor-league baseball team went on sale. Lubrone was hoping to pick up tickets for her dad in quick fashion and head out. Instead, she was greeted with a line of about 1,000 people - amazing considering that the players haven't been named yet.

"We were expecting a big turnout, but not like this. I mean the line is outside," said Frank Pokorney, a spokesman for the Ducks who watched in awe as the line extended for about two blocks.

The Ducks, which will play in the independent Atlantic League, are to debut at the new Suffolk County Sports Park in Central Islip on April 28. Some people lined up to purchase tickets as early as 6 p.m. Friday, fans said. However, officials assured those waiting on line that there were plenty of tickets for the 6,000-seat stadium.

Bud Harrelson, former member of the 1969 "Miracle Mets" championship team and co-owner and manager of the Ducks, signed autographs yesterday while expressing his elation at the fruits of his labor.

"This was five years of work, and now it's culminating in this type of excitement," said Harrelson, 52, who lives in Hauppauge. "I think this is really the best thing I've done in baseball so far because it's within my community, and it's for my community."

Tickets for regular season home games are $ 7 to $ 9, according to team officials, a far cry from the standard prices for major league baseball games.

"Yes!" exclaimed Dan O'Connell, a 42-year-old Nassau County police officer, upon finally scoring his opening-day tickets after about five hours on line.

Maude McCalman, 58, a registered nurse who lives blocks from the new ballpark, said there is one other glaring difference between major and minor league baseball.

"It's not the money they're playing for," McCalman said. "So it'll be a good example for the kids."

By 3:45 p.m. the booth was closed as tickets for all three Ducks opening weekend games were sold out - 18,000 tickets total. (Only 4,500 of those tickets were sold yesterday; group sales and season ticket purchases account for the other 13,500 tickets.)

But not to worry, Pokorney said. Everyone who waited on line was able to get tickets.

One of those, Steven Stamm, said he just wanted to be a part of history. "In different sports every couple of years you hear stories about a guy who came from nowhere to make it," said Stamm, 31, who arrived at the Hilton around 8: 45 a.m. decked out in a Ducks T-shirt and Ducks hat. "Five years from now, a guy from the Long Island Ducks could be throwing in the seventh game of the World Series. You never know."