Friday, December 05

I just met a guy who bowled a 300 game, and he told me all about it. It was an unsparing account. Welcome to the Baseball Traveler newsletter. Enough with the jokes. Let's talk about Minor League Baseball.

Escape the pervasive cold and darkness of our present December moment by traveling back in time to a Charleston RiverDogs game on a late spring evening. It's an idyllic scene. The players cavort on the field and the fans cheer in the stands as hundreds of rolls of toilet paper stream through the night like shooting stars.

Welcome to Toilet Paper Night, in which the RiverDogs encourage fans to make a gigantic mess at the ballpark. Two thousand rolls are distributed at the end of the game, with the resulting team-approved vandalism turning Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park into a tissue bedecked mess.

"We create the opportunity to keep fans here longer on Saturday night," said RiverDogs president Dave Echols. "And we guarantee it's not gonna rain the night we do it. That's the biggest thing."

It tracks that it's the Charleston RiverDogs who have pioneered this promotion, as the Single-A Tampa Bay affiliate has long had a reputation for absurd promotions. This penchant for the absurd is the natural byproduct of an ownership group that includes Mike Veeck and Bill Murray.

Echols, who has been with the team for over two decades, has a ready list of promotions that he's been a part of. How about Nobody Night, when no fans were allowed in the ballpark until the game became official? Or maybe Vasectomy Night, a Father's Day endeavor that was ultimately cancelled due to public outcry? Best of all, in his opinion, was staging the 2012 South Atlantic League Home Run Derby on the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier.

Toilet Paper Night debuted in 2021 as a tongue-in-cheek response to the toilet paper "shortage" that gripped the nation during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's one in a series of what RiverDogs senior vice president Ben Abzug calls "experiential promotions."

"We made a conscious decision," he said. "Instead of giving something away to 1,000 people, can we do something that everybody in the stands can be involved in? ... The first one that I think of, we did Silly String Night [in 2017]. A brainchild of Nate Kurant, our former promotions guy. We gave 5,000 cans of Silly String out and after the game everybody crushed each other.

"Nate tells the story: His bank called him, because why would anybody order 5,000 cans of string and put it on their credit card? So, he had to prove that that was not fraud."

Current promotions director Stephanie Keller, who joined the team prior to the 2025 season, didn't have to deal with fraud concerns on Toilet Paper Night (the 2,000 rolls were donated by various team sponsors). She put the promotion back on the schedule this season after it didn't appear in 2024, making it part of "Mischief Night" during a larger "Halfway to Halloween" homestand.

"I really wanted to create that visual for everybody to be included in an event postgame," she said.

As the evening's game, the second in a doubleheader, entered its final stages, Keller and a phalanx of employees and gameday staffers brought the boxes of toilet paper onto the concourse and began handing out rolls. On the videoboard a short video played reminding fans to wait until the game ended before throwing it, and to please not get the toilet paper stuck in the netting (most listened, some didn't).

As for how fans should throw the toilet paper, Keller said that "you already have to have it unspooled a little bit and then you throw it up. … Keep throwing, keep throwing throughout the entire stadium, and decorate the lower bowl."

And thus, over the course of a chaotic five minutes, the toilet paper ended up where it usually does: in the bowl. With the exception of an understandably disgruntled groundskeeper, muttering to himself as he tamped the dirt around home plate, a good time appeared to be had by all.

Director of operations Dan Knapinksi was among those in a good mood, even though he’d be the one overseeing the prodigious clean-up.

"If the fans like it, that's what’s going to keep them coming back," he said with a shrug. "So we're all good with it if they’re all good with it."

There was more to my night with the Charleston RiverDogs than tossed toilet paper, hard as that may be to believe. It was a beautiful night in the Holy City the whole way through.

The RiverDogs' home of Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park -- named after a former mayor and colloquially called "The Joe" -- opened in 1997. Its tree-lined front entrance leads to a staircase that deposits fans onto the concourse near the left-field foul pole. The first-base side features a view of the Ashley River.

I was in town for a late-May doubleheader against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers (CWS), whom the RiverDogs swept.

During the first game, I spent a couple innings on the air with Larry Larson. I first met Larry in 2022 when, at the age of 22, he became the voice of the Beloit Sky Carp after winning the Dream Job Competition at Beloit's Sports Broadcasting Symposium. He's one of the best young voices in the game and I suspect he'll soon go on to bigger things. 

Between games of the doubleheader, I spoke with Marshall Heiden, an 88-year-old fan whom I'd corresponded with in the past. He's a retired pharmacist who now works part-time for a trucking company, taking pride in living a fulfilling and active life. Marshall told me that he walked 1.2 miles to the ballpark that day, after attending a bar mitzvah earlier, and that his step count was at a solid 9,400. At the ballpark, however, he's all about the action on the field.

"I've kept an accurate scorebook for 40 years now," he said. "It keeps my mind active."

A can of "Mystery Beer" probably won't keep your mind active, but a deal's a deal. 

Why not pair your Mystery Beer with a Cheeto-dusted concession item? A nearby concourse cart is stocked with this incandescent accoutrement, offering to "Cheeto Dust Any Item You Buy in the Ballpark" for $3. The cart also offers pre-dusted popcorn and pretzels.

Questionable innovations such as the above are par for the course for the RiverDogs, who have always been creative with their food and beverage offerings. Designated Eater Chris O'Brien, tasked with sampling the ballpark cuisine my gluten-free diet prohibits, was on hand to sample a curated selection while washing it all down with a Beer Shake (ice cream and beer, two great tastes that apparently go great together).

The Footlong Homewrecker Brat, a variation on the team's Homewrecker Dog, is topped with pimento cheese, coleslaw, pickled onions, pickled okra, collard greens and barbecue sauce. Chris praised the brat's "touch of Southern-ness" and then proclaimed "sold!"

Next up was chicken wings, available with a Chef's Red sauce as well as Carolina BBQ-inspired Chef's Gold. Chris preferred the Chef's Gold, praising its "good tang" and "good crunch."

The Nashville Hot Chicken Taco is topped with cilantro, onions and a "powerslaw" made from a kale and Brussels sprouts blend. Chris said that it had a "good kick" but would benefit from a "little something else" such as sour cream or chipotle mayo.

The Lowcountry Boil brings a local specialty to the ballpark. "The shrimp tastes good, not oversalted," said Chris. "Might be a little messy at the ballpark, but would I order for dinner? Yes."

We'll close with a real winner, the Mexican Street Corn on a stick. It's got lime crema, diced red onions, jalapeños, cilantro and cheese.

"I could eat this all day," raved Chris. "It's got good flavor and it's easy to eat, on a massive stick.”

As the night wore on, food on a stick transitioned to toilet paper on a roll. Good night from Charleston's "The Joe," a great ballpark for fans of the experiential.

Thank you, as always, for reading. Also, thanks to MLB live content coordinator Natalie Reid for taking many of the photos seen above.

I love hearing from readers of this newsletter. Get in touch anytime, and please recommend The Baseball Traveler to others who may enjoy it. Finally, please follow me on Instagram (@thebensbiz), X (@bensbiz) and Bluesky (@bensbiz.bsky.social). I appreciate you. 

Contact Benjamin Hill

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