Ex-Curve owner has nothing but fond memories
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Jarrod Prugar
For the Mirror
From the moment Altoona Curve owner Chuck Greenberg walked into a minor league baseball stadium, he knew he wanted to be a part of it and own a team someday.
Altoona helped make that dream come true, albeit way quicker than he ever could have anticipated.
"I always loved baseball growing up, baseball was like a religion to me," Greenberg said. "I went to a minor league game in Reading, my first one on Memorial Day in 2000, and at no point did I think about getting into the business, I just thought it was fun and a great atmosphere and looks like a good business."
For Greenberg, opportunity knocked or in this instance called while he was assisting a group of investors purchase the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League. It was the late Tate DeWeese on the line to gauge Greenberg's interest in buying the Curve.
"I got a call from Tate DeWeese and he said 'I'm one of two owners of the Altoona Curve the Pirate's Double-A affiliate. We've got a nice little franchise. Nice town with this beautiful new ballpark. We're in our third season. Everything's going great except my partner and I don't get along.'" Greenberg recalled.
DeWeese and Bob Lozinak had sued each other in federal court and there was seemingly no other solution in sight at the time which is why DeWeese made the call to Greenberg and asked if he'd want to buy the team.
"That was my introduction to the Altoona Curve," Greenberg said. "At the time, I'm not embarrassed to say that if you gave me a map of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and spotted me 100 miles I probably wouldn't have pointed out exactly where Altoona was. I don't know why, but as soon as he laid out the idea, I said 'yeah, that'd be great.'"
After agreeing to purchase the team, Greenberg called DeWeese back to talk details and finalize the agreement.
"I followed up with him a few weeks later, and in short order, came to an understanding with Tate and Bob Lozinak with the terms of my purchase," Greenberg said. "They had to come to terms with each other and how to split the proceeds which was considerably more challenging and eventually it all worked out and the rest is history."
What came next was uncertainty for Greenberg.
"It was under really challenging circumstances because we all shook hands on a deal just before Labor Day 2001 and I was still in the early stages of putting the group together," Greenberg said. "While the lawyers were preparing to have the documents done, 9/11 took place."
While the challenges Greenberg was dealing with paled in comparison to the world as a whole and America specifically. It cast an air of uncertainty over what was next for the purchase of the team.
"The challenges that I had at that time were meaningless compared to what's going on in the world, but for what it's worth here I was a first time prospective entrepreneur and I had to put an investor group together," Greenberg said. "We had to borrow money at a time where everyone was understandably very concerned about investing or lending."
With that said, Greenberg wasn't able to do it alone and in stepped some pretty notable names within the Altoona community and the Pittsburgh sports community.
"It took a lot of really great people stepping up and agreeing to join me at a perilous time. Together, we were able to do it but Don Devorris and Steve Sheetz coming on board was huge as far as local credibility. We got Mario Lemieux and Jerome Bettis who were part of that original group, just a really strong lineup of people."
The group provided Greenberg the financial means, but along with that came some great guidance and advice for the first-time owner.
"We closed on April Fool's Day, which probably has some cosmic significance, and we had our first game on Thursday, April 4, and we were off and running," Greenberg said.
Taking control just two days before the first game seems to be a fairly overwhelming task and at first it was for Greenberg and company they hadn't even figured out what keys go where yet.
"I remember I got a keyring with 30 keys on it and I said that's really fascinating, but we have a game in two days and right now, we don't know what key opens the men's room," Greenberg said. "It was crazy taking over two days before the season started, but with (former Curve general manager) Todd 'Parney' Parnell at the helm, I knew we were in the best of hands."
Fortunately for Greenberg, the franchise was under solid footing when they bought it which made things a considerable amount easier as the dust settled with their purchase and figured out where all of their keys went to.
"The franchise had a great foundation under the leadership of the Lozinak family, so we were starting from a good place which was very, very important," Greenberg said. "Parney and I each had a vision of a franchise that was really on the cutting edge of promotions and marketing, irreverence and the fan experience, and so we were able to work on a really solid foundation and add to it as opposed to fixing things and that's really important, and a tremendous credit to the way the franchise was run before we got there."
With keys in hand and the season underway, Parney and Greenberg could put their own touches on the franchise and that they did.
"Those early days were really wild. I mean, I remember so many nights 1:30-2 in the morning, figuring out how we wanted to do things, how we wanted to organize the staff and positions to hire for," Greenberg said. "We were just kind of making it up as we went along. It was a great time."
In the early days under Greenberg, the Curve weren't afraid to do much of anything and pulled in quite a host of celebrities to help get fans in the stands.
"I think at first, they thought we were little nuts," Greenberg said. "I remember the first month that we were there. We had first pitches from Mario (Lemieux), Jerome (Bettis) and Bill Cowher. And we did an ode to Enron night, that was our way of saying 'Hey, we're willing to do anything here.'"
It provided an element of surprise when coming to the ballpark and it resonated with fans who never quite knew what would happen every game.
"I think people thought we were a little goofy, but they came to really enjoy that you never knew what to expect in the ballpark and as an organization, we had a sense of humor and we didn't take ourselves too seriously," Greenberg said. "That was the beginning of seven incredibly fun and enjoyable years."
Those seven years included a lot of filled seats, improvements to the ballpark, and much more for both the community and the organization.
"We were really proud of what we accomplished there in those seven seasons," Greenberg said. "My goodness, there was one season when we averaged 5,997 people a game which in a market of that size, it's just extraordinary. We took good care of everybody and we were constantly reinventing the fan experience. You know, I'm just enormously proud of it."
The fan experience in Altoona is something Greenberg never took for granted, in fact, it's something he looks back on with gratitude.
"For folks like Parney and myself we're the lucky people who get to be a part of something that's really special to communities and the people and we always tried to understand that it's really their team we're just the ones who are lucky enough to take care of it for them," Greenberg said. "It's experiences like those that motivate us and are meaningful to us and make everyday a new opportunity to make somebody happy."
All things must come to an end eventually and for Greenberg his reign as owner of the Altoona Curve came to an end after seven seasons. In his mind, there was only one person he wanted to sell the team to when the decision to sell was made.
"I knew the Lozinak family really never desired to sell the team in the first place," Greenberg said. "I thought, here's an opportunity to exit on a high note, return the franchise to its original owner and be a happy story for everybody. I had subsequently started a team in State College and acquired the team in Myrtle Beach so it just seemed like the right move at the right time and was a happy ending for everybody."
Greenberg still owns the State College Spikes and Myrtle Beach Pelicans where it should come as no shock things are done very similarly to how they were with the Curve. With the other franchises and the numerous former employees spread throughout the sport industry, there is a tremendous footprint of former Curve employees.
"The network of Altoona DNA is spread everywhere in the remarkable things our staff back then are going on to do all over the sport industry, into relationships with former players and managers and coaches who we continue to see to this day and it was a very special time and a special place that I look back on with great love and affection," Greenberg said.