TYRONE — Members of the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce got a peek behind the curtain of what it takes to manage the Altoona Curve during the chamber’s breakfast meeting Thursday.

Curve general manager Nate Bowen and Mike Kessling, the Curve’s marketing, promotions and special events director, said the Curve’s offseason is busier than the actual baseball season when staff gets to the office and immediately starts planning for the day’s game.

Kessling said the Curve’s graphics are made weeks in advance. But when the ticket staff arrives, they immediately start trying to sell tickets all day while also planning for first-base or third-base picnics.

On Kessling’s side of things, he has to get everything ready for things like what’s going down on the field and what the Curve are doing for the meatball race during the game. He also has to plan out the homestand in advance of marketing efforts for those events, he said.

“It’s a fun juggling process of continuing to try and stay as far ahead as possible but also trying to plan for that day of the game,” Kessling said.

In the afternoon, “that’s when the rubber really hits the pavement” because interns switch over from doing sales tasks to setting up props for the game after lunch, Kessling said.

“There’s just so many things” that go on during the average day, he noted, and “anything can happen” throughout the day that staff has to be prepared for.

“There’s all kinds of stuff going on behind the scenes,” Kessling said, adding he gets to deal with the “fun stuff” while Bowen gets to work with the teams and manage the Altoona Curve Charities, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to supporting local youth programs and organizations.

Bowen said the Curve sell 50/50 raffle tickets during each of its games that has enabled the organization “to do a lot of good things throughout the community,” like handing out $185,000 to 30-35 nonprofit groups to assist with baseball field repair costs, such as lighting projects, for little league teams.

Chamber board member Stacey Krepps asked Bowen how they come up with each of their event themes, to which Bowen replied, “It’s a combination of people really.”

Bowen said the Curve have a creative team that meets throughout the season to pitch ideas.

Kessling said the creative meetings are “great” because the whole point of them is to throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks.

“Everybody has a voice,” he said. “You never know when someone’s dumb idea turns out to be something that people really love.”

According to Bowen, the Curve will name itself after Blair County for the first time this year. The team will be named the “Blair County Crickets” during its July 18-20 home games against the Akron RubberDucks in honor of Cricket Field, which closed in the 1960s and was a hub for local baseball and other sporting events. The field hosted baseball legends such as Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige, Bowen said.

July 20 is also the Tyrone community night at the Curve, chamber President Diane Irwin said, noting a fundraiser will be held at PNG Field benefiting the Golden Eagle Backpack program.

Bowen said Altoona has a population of about 43,000 people and — in terms of attendance — the Curve are typically in the middle of minor league baseball’s double-A eastern league.

“I think that’s really impressive,” Bowen said. “It says a lot about the community and the support that we get.”

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.