Valentine gets Travs slogans to stick

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

— Former Arkansas Travelers General Manager Bill Valentine said recently, “It’s funny how sometimes you can develop a saying if the media picks it up and you continue to use it until the public accepts it.

“My two best were ‘it never rains at Ray Winder Field’ and the Travelers were ‘the Greatest Show on Dirt.’ ”

Valentine explained how he came up with the sayings.

“One year, it rained nearly every week all summer long,” he said. “However, for some reason many times it didn’t rain at Ray Winder Field. The first saying started when we had a big Saturday draw [full house] and it began raining all over town. The telephone was ringing off the hook. We only had two lines and there were only two of us in the main office, so I was helping answering the phone. For some reason, “It never rains at Ray Winder Field” stuck in my mind. I told the other person who was answering the other phone to also say, ‘It never rains at Ray Winder Field.’ We could say it as soon as we answered the phone.

“On this day, television weathermen called the park to see if we were going to play, and they used it on their 6 p.m. weather. All three of them went on the air and said the Travelers were playing and Valentine says, ‘It never rains at Ray Winder Field.’

“The Greatest Show on Dirt was the other thing. I needed something to advertise with the other saying. Since we were having promotional acts every home stand, I began calling the Travelers, ‘the greatest show on dirt.’

“I used ‘Greatest Show’ for many years. In those days I ran an ad on the amusement page of the weekend showing our promotions. and the headline was, ‘The Greatest Show on Dirt.’ Someone with the circus clipped my ad and sent it to the Ringling Brothers main office. It just so happened that Ringling Brothers circus was playing the same weekend the Travs were home.

“They turned it over to their lawyers and I received a telephone call from a lawyer explaining to me that ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ belongs to a Ringling Brothers copyright.

“We worked out a deal that I would be able to sell all my souvenir ltems that had ‘Greatest Show on Dirt’ on them until I sold out. Then I would have to change my slogan. We agreed on ‘Greatest Game on Dirt’ and that is what we use to this day.

“We would do some crazy promotions. We had a local ice company in those days that could produce 100 pounds of ice [in a block]. I would have them a freeze a 100 dollar [bill in the] pounds of ice. We would call out a lucky scoreboard program number in the first game of a doubleheader. The winner would receive the 100 pounds of ice, which we would deliver to their seat. It was up to them to get the 100 dollar bill. Most of them wound up pushing what was about a 70-pound block of ice out of the gate at the end of the second game.”

Valentine was general manager for 33 years, with the Travelers playing in Little Rock through 2006. The Travs moved to North Little Rock in 2007, and Valentine announced his retirement as general manager.

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/15/2013