Blending baseball, NTSD events

With Tanyard Gardens and other National Tom Sawyer Days events just a foul ball away from Clemens Field, how well will the two blend together especially since the Cavemen have home games scheduled both Thursday, July 2, and Friday, July 3? Representatives of both the ballteam and NTSD see only good things resulting.
“We hope with the ballpark and two ballgames over those nights we’re going to have even more foot traffic,” said Kevin Knickerbocker of the Hannibal Jaycees, who is one of the co-chairmen of this year’s NTSD.
“We’ve worked with Kevin to modify the start times so that it’s a continuous flow of events. If you’re at the Tom Sawyer, then we have a ballgame. When the ballgame is over it rolls right into his band. We really worked with Kevin to harmonize the events together,” said Larry Owens, one of the Cavemen co-owners. “It will be interesting to see how it comes out, if people embrace it that way.”
The Cavemen have pushed up the scheduled start times of both Thursday and Friday’s games to 6:05 p.m., which is 30 minutes earlier than normal weeknight starting times.
Parking should not be a nightmare, according to Knickerbocker. The Jaycees have gained permission to use an open piece of property for parking that is located across from the city’s dog park on Ely Street. In addition, “no parking” restrictions along Warren Barrett Drive have also been lifted.
“There are various areas around downtown Hannibal where people can take advantage of parking and walk around to the various activities,” said Knickerbocker.
If there is a parking pinch, it could be felt by the Cavemen who have allowed the Jaycees to use a significant part of their parking area as the site for their annual celebration.
“We’ve been parking probably 150 cars on that site every night,” said Owens.
Owens believes if people are patient, everything will work out.
“If there’s anything we have to apologize to people for will be the parking problem,” he said. “He (Knickerbocker) grabbed some parking on the other side of the tracks and I think that might make the difference.
“If people will be patient and realize this is a festival where you’re used to parking, walking and spending a little time on your feet everything will be OK. If you don’t want to do that you can ride the trolly.”