SeaWolves honor local food in alternate identity

What’s your favorite ballpark snack? A hot dog? Pizza? A helmet full of nachos? Well, Detroit's Double-A affiliate has a savory treat that may have them all beat -- pepperoni balls.

While that might sound like something found on a charcuterie board, that’s hardly the extent of the Erie delicacy.

Pepperoni balls are like a dinner roll’s big brother, pieces of pepperoni and cheese enveloped in pizza dough and fried to perfection, with signature grid marks on the outside. At UPMC Park, they’re not just a crowd favorite, they’re a team favorite too.

To promote the “Erie-est Weekend” from Aug. 4-5, the team rebranded as the Erie Pepperoni Balls and celebrated all things Erie, Pennsylvania.

“This was an idea we were kicking around for quite a number of years,” said Greg Gania, the SeaWolves' assistant GM and head of communications. “We kicked the tires with our main designer, Dan Simon, down at Studio Simon, and he came up with a logo and color scheme and everyone was just like, ‘OK, this is brilliant.’”

Erie went 1-1 as the alternate identity, dropping Friday’s game to the Harrisburg Senators, 13-3, before bouncing back with an 8-0 win on Saturday.

The jerseys featured a red-and-white checkered pattern reminiscent of a classic tablecloth on the sleeves, and a pepperoni ball character swinging a baseball bat and wearing a ballcap as the logo.

Stanganelli's Italian Foods is the Exclusive Pepperoni Ball provider of the Erie SeaWolves!

Be sure to visit Stanganelli's at 1621 West 26th Street to get all of their great products! pic.twitter.com/9ygsoDEZWb

— Erie SeaWolves (@erie_seawolves) August 5, 2023

“It was a way to feature a lot of local businesses on the concourse,” Gania said. “It was basically anything you could find that was Erie-themed, whether it was trivia or food items, we sold a ton of pepperoni balls that weekend in general.”

In recent years, the team has focused on localizing every aspect of the ballpark experience. Potentially, its biggest partnership is with Stanganelli’s Italian Foods, a local market in Erie that makes all the pepperoni balls sold at the ballpark. Established in 1961, the company has become famous for its calzone-like treat, which has even been sold on the QVC network.

“It’s one of those items where if we run out of them on a given night, we will have fans who are local that will tweet us saying, ‘Why are you running out of pepperoni balls?’” Gania said. “Our food and beverage team have the task of always making sure they are on hand and available for fans, because if we run out, we hear about it.”

To kick off the promotion, Erie produced a video of C. Wolf -- the team’s mascot -- learning how to make pepperoni balls at Stanganelli’s. The players even got in on the action, requesting pepperoni balls as part of their postgame spread.

This is our most ballsy promotion ever... pic.twitter.com/7FCMjS7SsM

— Erie SeaWolves (@erie_seawolves) March 28, 2023

“Anytime you can get the players to buy into a theme night at the ballpark, that means you did something really good with the promotion,” Gania said.

While the pepperoni balls have been the star of the show at the stadium, almost every food item sold is from a local business. The hot dogs at UPMC Park are from Smith’s, an Erie company, there is official wine and liquor from the area and a cheesesteak cart from a local butcher.

“We’re a small community here in Erie and people take their local stuff very seriously around here,” Gania said. “They’d run us out of town if we switched to a national hot dog brand.”

To round out the promotion and further honor the Erie community, the team released a new fight song for the occasion. SeaWolves president Greg Coleman penned the tune in the style of a sea shanty.