If You Do the Laundry, They Will Come

By Harriet Barovick, Michelle Derrow, Richard Diaz, Tam Gray, Daniel Levy, Lina Lofaro, Michele Orecklin, Flora Tartakovsky and Chris Taylor

Baseball season includes twice as many games as pro basketball and 10 times as many as pro football. And Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa can play on only one team each. To encourage repeat business, major and minor league teams have devised some creative promotions this season:

--Laundry Night (Charleston River Dogs): free laundry service during the game

--Fishing Rod Night (Minnesota Twins): anyone wearing waders admitted free; fishing poles given to the first 5,000 people

--Computer Geek Night (Colorado Springs Sky Sox): free admission for those named Chip or Mac or with the initials PC; look-alike contests for Dilbert, Bill Gates and Al Gore; a bad-mouse bonfire and free wrist and forearm massages

--Lawyer Appreciation Night (Tampa Bay Devil Rays): lawyers had to pay twice the ticket price

--Birth Night (Lowell Spinners): a year's free diapers for the first woman to begin labor during a game. (No one had contractions at the game, so the first woman to deliver after the game won)