The annual summer soundtrack of beer vendors hollering over the inaudible chatter of the crowd was gone, replaced by an audio clip played at the crack of the bat to simulate the fans’ reaction.
There were no groans or gasps inside Sahlen Field on Wednesday night as the Miami Marlins’ Brian Anderson hit a three-run homer in the first inning or when the Blue Jays’ offense erupted during the second Major League Baseball game in Buffalo since 1915.
There was no Bisons superfan Mark Aichinger, unless we’re counting the cardboard cutout strapped to a seat directly behind home plate.
“He just hates not going to the ballgames,” Greg Aichinger, Mark’s brother, said.
Across his 30-plus years attending games at Sahlen Field, Mark Aichinger has endeared himself to Bisons fans and likely annoyed opponents by heckling from his seat. The 56-year-old North Buffalo resident is legally blind, suffers from deafness in his right ear and has challenges with verbal communication.
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Aichinger listens to the game broadcast with his left ear using a handheld radio. If a pitcher is struggling, Aichinger points at his left armpit. If pace of play reaches a slog, Aichinger is the first to provide a verbal nudge.
While the pandemic has shut out fans from watching the spectacle that is the Buffalo Blue Jays, neither the Bisons nor this city’s new major league team wanted to exclude Aichinger and others who frequent Sahlen Field.
Aichinger’s cutout is among 1,700 filling seats inside Sahlen Field, joining a group that includes Bisons owners Bob and Mindy Rich, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Blue Jays players, team broadcasters, MLB Network personalities, a woman known by Toronto sports fans at Rogers Centre as Home Plate Lady and Geddy Lee, lead vocalist for the rock band “Rush.”
“The Blue Jays were proactive with us asking for any special requests and obviously our first thought was Mark,” Bisons General Manager Anthony Sprague said. “It didn’t take any convincing as they knew who he was and what he means to the Bisons family. The Jays deserve a lot of credit for keeping some Sahlen field traditions like Mark here.”
With the coronavirus forcing MLB to play a 60-game schedule, teams have engaged with fans by selling cutouts that are placed in empty seats. While most are simply season ticket holders, there are some off-the-wall sights at ballparks these days.
The Oakland Athletics have cutouts of actor Tom Hanks and a full-grown mule. Guy Fieri, a celebrity chef, is glaring from a seat in San Francisco. But these have also been used to represent longtime fans, past and present. The Blue Jays planned to use cutouts in Rogers Centre before the Canadian government barred them from playing games in Toronto this season.
When the Blue Jays finally picked Buffalo as their temporary home city, the team’s marketing department, led by Michelle Seniuk and Jess Marchello, formed a plan to work with a local vendor on the cutouts. Fans sent in a photo for approval and the $60 Canadian price tag included a promise that the Blue Jays will mail the cutout back at the end of the season, though they can’t promise in what condition.
The cutouts were produced by Minute Print in Buffalo and positioned throughout Sahlen Field in time for the Blue Jays’ debut in Western New York. Portions of the proceeds will benefit Jays Care Foundation's efforts to support Canadian families who have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
Before the Blue Jays sold out in less than 24 hours, they offered the Bisons an opportunity to include fans from Buffalo. Unprompted, Ross Atkins, the Blue Jays’ general manager, asked the Bisons if Aichinger was going to be in his spot behind home plate.
“This is our new home and it’s also their home,” Seniuk said. “We really wanted to include their fans. I know Mark, their season ticket holder, was really important for us to have down there and they had a couple of different season ticket members they were really interested in showcasing. Same as us with our fans. We wanted to make it feel like home, but this is also such a bizarre season in baseball. It’s so much about the fans and not having our fans here, we wanted to engage with them.”
Aichinger is a longtime fan of all Buffalo sports teams and has attended games by himself. His mother suffers from Alzheimer's and Aichinger has been out of work since the pandemic took hold in March, though he is expected to return to the Cantalician Center on Monday.
At approximately 6 p.m. Tuesday, as batting practice was taking place at Sahlen Field ahead of the Blue Jays’ first game in Buffalo, Jim Smolka picked up Aichinger at his North Buffalo home in preparation for his first glimpse at his cutout on television.
Aichinger was brimming with excitement after receiving phone calls throughout the day from family and friends asking about the cutout, which was shared on the Bisons’ Twitter account Monday night.
“He’s really excited about it,” said Greg Aichinger. “He was actually screaming, ‘yay,’ out a lot when he heard about it. How many people know him just from the Bisons? There are times we’ll be out in public and people will stop to talk to him. He gets really excited when people acknowledge him.”
Mark Aichinger and Smolka have enjoyed many car rides together since they first formed a friendship at the ballpark in the mid-'90s. Smolka, a 57-year-old North Tonawanda resident, first offered Aichinger a ride home. Eventually, Aichinger became a family friend, joining Jim, Linda and their three children for the ride to Sahlen Field and road trips to watch major league games featuring former Bisons player Torey Lovullo, now manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Aichinger attended many little league games for Smolka’s two sons, both of whom now work on the grounds crew at Sahlen Field. Over the years, there have been birthday parties, street hockey, Buffalo Bandits games and ice skating in the backyard.
And now, Aichinger’s national television debut Tuesday night, which he witnessed in the Smolkas’ living room. When former Bisons infielder Jon Berti, now with the Miami Marlins, grounded out to short, Aichinger raised his left arm in the air and pointed at his armpit with his right index finger, a trademark taunt to signal that a player stinks.
Aichinger cocked his right elbow back to simulate umpire’s strikeout calls, urged pitchers to speed it up and cheered for former Bisons now on the Blue Jays.
“It’s good to see have some excitement in his life because he misses baseball tremendously and he misses seeing everyone he knows from the ballpark,” said Smolka. “It was gratifying to be with him and almost be at a Bisons game but at a major-league level. When he saw his cutout on the television, he was pointing to it. ... Mark has a special place in my heart. To see him happy and to see his ex-Buffalo Bisons playing, it brought a tear to my eye.”
Mark being Mark@buffalobisons pic.twitter.com/mNjHTKvNNx
— jim smolka (@jimsmolka) August 12, 2020
While the Blue Jays wanted to celebrate those who typically fill the seats in Sahlen Field every summer, they also wanted to make the ballpark feel like home to players and manager Charlie Montoyo. More than 30 cutouts were made of the players’ and Montoya’s children.
Upon arriving at Sahlen Field, Montoyo took a picture with the cutouts for his two sons, Tyson Howard and Alexander. A number of players have posed with the cutouts of their family members. The Blue Jays’ staff will also soon be represented by cutouts in the ballpark.
“It's been obviously an extremely difficult situation for us," Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen said. "The fact they have people's kids and family members everywhere, that personal touch, is really cool.”
