Jason Smorol Hits a Home Run with the Syracuse Mets

By Mary Beth Roach

 

To Jason Smorol, general manager of the Syracuse Mets, a fan’s trip to the NBT Stadium is more than catching a baseball game.

For him, it’s all about making it a memorable experience, packed with fun promotions, food, occasional fireworks shows and such events as a boneless chicken-wing-eating contest with competitive-eating champion Joey Chestnut.

“We have to build the environment here that people want to come here, whether that’s for the baseball, whether that’s for the food, whether that’s for the fun — just being able to provide affordable family fun,” he said. “It just energizes me.”

And Smorol has plenty of energy!

Whether he’s chatting up fans on the stadium concourse or in the stands, making pre-game announcements on the field or doing media interviews, his enthusiasm for the crowds and the sport is obvious.

“He’s the most charismatic human being I know and he is very pro community,” said Onondaga County Parks Commissioner Brian Kelley. Kelley has worked with Smorol for about 10 years, since the NBT Stadium is a county-owned facility with the Mets as a tenant.

But there’s so much more to Smorol’s job than fans see at the stadium or on TV.

He oversees a dedicated staff of about 19, which he said is the smallest in Triple A baseball. On game days, that number can balloon to nearly 200, including ticket takers, security, parking lot staff, ushers and field maintenance crews. He handles a wide range of aspects of the business, which can include administration budgeting, HR, sponsorship, marketing and the presentation of the show; and fostering relationships with vendors, the major league affiliates and other minor league teams.

Presenting the special promotions is one of Smorol’s favorite parts of his job.

While many, like the recent night with Chestnut and fireworks shows, are fun, others, like the Cancer Survivors Night, which was held in early June this year, are more moving for Smorol. Of that particular night, he said, they “recognize the strength of the people with cancer.”

“We just get to engage with the community so much and hear their stories and feel their stories. And sometimes it’s emotional and sometimes it’s fun and sometimes we’re raising money and doing good and sometimes we’re just being silly. That’s what I love about the job,” he said.

Some of these promotions have already occurred this season, but there are a few fan favorites are still coming up, including Polish Night on Aug. 7; the third and final Latino Night, part of a “Copa de la Diversion,” on Aug. 21; Bark in the Park on Aug. 24; Irish Night on Sept.12, and Italian Night and Frederick J. Karle Fan Appreciation Day are on Sept. 13. Earlier promotions have included Haudenosaunee Night, Little League Night, Pride Night, Armed Forces Day and First Responders Day. This year’s Pole of the Year at the Syracuse Polish Festival, Smorol introduced Polish Night 2016.

These promotions, in part, have led to successful seasons for the stadium, helping to drive up the number of families coming through the gates. Kelley pointed out that in 2016 attendance was 274,362, compared to 347,810 in 2024.

Smorol, 56, has been involved with minor league baseball for a good part of his adult life.

The North Syracuse native and Bishop Grimes grad received his bachelor’s degree in communication from SUNY Fredonia and got a master’s in sports management the United States Sports Academy in Mobile, Alabama.

He started with the Watertown Indians, and then in the late 1990s, he moved to the Batavia Clippers, which he later renamed the Batavia Muckdogs. He started as assistant general manager there and ended up as general manager. Then, he went to the Staten Island Yankees, before returning to this area, where he taught sports management at SUNY Cortland and Tompkins Community College. The Auburn Doubledays approached Smorol to be their general manager, which he did from 2001 to 2003.

He left the world of baseball in 2003 and went to work with Hilti, which specializes in products for construction and related industries, for about 10 years. He and his wife, Rachel, also began their family. They are the parents of Julia and Mary. The family now includes their two dogs, Charlie and Alfie.

“I was happily living my life with my little family, and I thought I’d be with Hilti forever. I enjoyed it. I had nice work-life balance,” he said.

Not only did he enjoy the work, but he noted, too, that he was able to learn a lot about business and the importance of having value in one’s product. He would carry these lessons forward.

But a phone call one Sunday afternoon in the fall of 2013 changed all that.

At that time, the Syracuse Mets was still the Syracuse Chiefs and owned by Community Baseball Club of CNY Inc., the president of which was local businessman Bill Dutch. Smorol said he had met Dutch about 10 years prior and shortly before that phone call, he had received a Facebook friend request from him. During the call, the two exchanged a few pleasantries and then Dutch asked him if he’d like to be general manager of the team.

“How often do you get a phone call asking you to be the general manager of the Triple A baseball team in your hometown?” Smorol said.

He interviewed with Dutch, got the job and as he said, “here we are 12 years later.”

“I never thought in a million years I would be the general manager of the Chiefs. Now the Mets. So, I don’t take it for granted.”

In those intervening 12 years, there have been several changes with the team’s ownership. The Community Baseball Club sold to the New York Mets in late 2017, in time for the 2018 season and then the team was sold again at the beginning of this season to Diamond Baseball Holdings.

Smorol said that he believes these changes are all positive.

“I think they’ve made us better. They’ve made me better,” he said. “I’ve learned things from the Mets, in their leadership team and what they brought to the table.”

And now, with Diamond Baseball Holdings and its 40-plus teams, Smorol said he talks to many of them almost daily, sharing ideas and best practices.

In the past 12 years, there has been little to no staff turnover and that’s one of his points of pride. Many have been with him for the full 12 years and the “new staff,” as he jokingly called them, have been there about eight years.

“It’s definitely a family feeling over here. I’m just interested now in watching them grow and seeing how we can keep this thing rolling and keep making it better,” he said.

And while Smorol and his staff plan and market the team and all the fun, there are challenges. As he pointed out, this is not like promoting a store or product. Furthermore, they are only open about 75 days and for just a few hours each of those days.

And with Central New York weather being what it is, on some of those days, the staff is shoveling snow off the seats, others, they’re contending with haze from Canadian wildfires; other days the temperature on the scoreboard reads 92 degrees Fahrenheit.

But that brings one of his philosophies into play.

As he put it, “We can’t control the weather. We can’t control the play on the field. All we can control is the cleanliness of the stadium, the customer service, the promotions. I don’t blame fans for not coming when it’s raining. I don’t blame fans for not coming when it’s 36 degrees on a Wednesday night. When its 85 degrees, with a nice light breeze, with a beautiful summer sunset. There’s no better place to be than the ballpark.”

But when he’s not at the ballpark, Smorol said enjoys puttering around the family’s Liverpool home, cooking and spending time at the family vacation spot in the Alexandria Bay-Thousand Islands area.