Sounds Promotions Getting More Desperate

While they await completion of the new downtown ballpark, the Nashville Sounds are stuck trying to attract fans to aging Greer Stadium. As usual, though, team management has come up with an attractive slate of promotions this year—some favorites from years past, and some new for ’06. • Abu Ghraib Night: between games of a doubleheader, fans will be encouraged to strip naked and build human pyramids while surrounded by angry German shepherds and hostile guards. Fans who build the biggest pyramid win a case of Goo Goos. • Wiretap Night: official government illegal wiretappers will bug the visitors’ bullpen phone and pass information about whether a lefty or righty will be brought in at the bottom of the inning. Protests from opposing manager will be dismissed as dangerous to national security. • Bill Purcell Day: the mayor can’t settle on where he wants to sit, spending a third of the game down the first base line, a third down the third base line, and a third in the bleachers, all the while demanding that corporate interests foot the bill for his ticket. • Ballpark Toilet Night: any fan who can find a remotely clean rest room will win the right to use it. • Lobster Day: sun-baked bleacher-dwellers compete to see whose skin has the most appalling burn. The lucky winner receives a free consultation from a local dermatologist and a year’s supply of sunscreen. • Vomit Night: the return of a popular, albeit redundant promotion, given the quality of most ballpark cuisine. Fans will be encouraged to pack down as much dubious concession-stand fare as possible, in preparation for a projectile-vomiting contest during the seventh-inning stretch. Applause determines the winner. • Thank God Football’s Back Night: In early fall, the Sounds and Titans seasons overlap, and this popular promotion gives several lucky fans tickets to leave the Sounds game and go to the Coliseum to see the Titans play.