HUDSON VALLEY TEAM TURNS BASEBALL INTO FAMILY AFFAIR

The top draw for the Hudson Valley Renegades isn’t the $10.2 million pitcher on this summer’s roster or a New York-Penn League rival. It’s two raccoons.

Rookie Raccoon and Rene Raccoon, their highly popular mascots, are getting married today.

“It was our first game to sell out for the season,” Renegades General Manager Skip Weisman said.

Welcome to minor-league baseball in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., a town that has taken to the sideshow while literally taking in players trying to make it to “The Show.” The Renegades, new Class A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, sold out 4,320-seat Dutchess Stadium for all 38 games last year, as a Texas Rangers farm club, despite a 32-44 record.

Try doing that an hour down the road in New York City, where heads would roll if the Yankees were under .500 and fan apathy would rise with each defeat.

What the Renegades sell has little to do with the standings and everything to do with family entertainment, community involvement and a fun night without the crowd hassles of the Big Apple.

“We went to 37 games last year,” said Theresa Briccetti, who holds season tickets along with her husband, Michael, and two preschool children. “I work only 15 minutes from Yankee Stadium, but we only went to four Yankees games, even though we’re big fans of theirs, too.

“We spend $200 on a family of four going to a Yankees game, but here, it’s $228 a seat for 38 games and a short drive from our home. We’re big baseball fans, but the Renegades also are great family entertainment.”

The Renegades cap season-ticket sales at 1,800 and have 1,000 on a waiting list. Weisman said the club might be able to sell out with season tickets but opts to limit those to make the team available to everyone and ensure fewer no-shows for better concession sales. The first 16 games this season have been sellouts.

The team has 28 special promotion games with either bat, glove or jersey giveaways, fireworks or appearances by baseball comedian Myron Noodleman or the Piano Guys.

Or something.

“We’ve got something going on every half-inning,” Weisman said. “It might be a lucky-number giveaway, two fans racing in pedal cars, a conga line along the concourse or beach-ball musical chairs.”

Beach-ball musical chairs?

“Yeah,” Weisman said. “A beach ball gets thrown from section to section, and whoever’s holding it when the music stops gets a prize.”

Dutchess Stadium, built in 71 whirlwind days before the opening of the 1994 season for $8 million, has comfortable armchair seats, skyboxes, an air-conditioned gift shop, picnic areas and a first-class field.

Its construction was controversial because the area hadn’t had minor-league baseball since the Poughkeepsie Chiefs left in the early 1950s, and a plethora of pro sports existed just a short drive away.

But the team put up $2.5 million for construction, the state matched it and industry, private donations and bond sales covered the rest. It was built, and they came.

“The theory was that minor-league baseball wouldn’t work close to major cities,” Weisman said. “But now the theory is to go where the people are. And a lot of people swore off the major-leaguers after the (1994) strike, while I hear others don’t need the . . . hassle of going to Yankee Stadium.”

Theresa Briccetti said: “It’s the nicest stadium, and the fans are great, too. I have no problem letting our 5-year-old, Bettina, walk to the concession stand alone.”

There is so much trust surrounding the Renegades that fans actually house the players for a unique 10-week player adoption. Even pitcher Matt White, a high school phenom who signed last year for $10.2 million, was adopted by a local family.

“Last year, we had Corey Lee,” Briccetti said. “He’s pitching at Charlotte this year. . . . He was like a big brother to the kids, and we wore T-shirts with his name and number on nights he pitched.”

The players eat, sleep and have laundry done. Some receive car privileges. Players may pitch in by cutting the grass or doing other chores.

The Hudson Valley is so wild about its Renegades that 21 games are televised, three daily newspapers and a half-dozen weeklies cover the games, and WKIP broadcasts the Renegades instead of the Mets. The Poughkeepsie radio station took on the Renegades during the major-league strike and never turned back.

“IBM owns much of the business in the area and had 20,000 layoffs in recent years,” Weisman said. “It never needed economic development or a rallying point.”

The Renegades supplied both.

“The team gave us something to be happy about and became a morale booster,” Briccetti said. “We now had something other than layoffs; we have the boys of summer.”

The Renegades have made baseball popular and profitable. They have a $2 million operating budget but exceed that in revenue.

They also have those raccoons.

“Rookie was alone in 1994 and he got his girlfriend the next year,” Weisman said. “Last year, he proposed with an airplane message, and Rene accepted. Now, they’re getting married.”

Briccetti said: “Next year, we’ll probably have little Rookies and Renes running around.”

Is this a family show, or what?