http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/storie...09z0vkrLIU

 

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The Tonya Harding and bat night combination, which produced irony-inspired interest from across the nation, proved a successful draw for the Jacksonville Suns Friday night at Wolfson Park.

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The promotions attracted 2,500 walk-up ticket buyers after 6 p.m. Friday, and 1,000 tickets were sold earlier in the day. The announced attendance for the Southern League game against the Chattanooga Lookouts was 6,704, the seventh largest crowd of the team's 41 home dates. Expectant fans formed a long line around the outside of Wolfson Park before the gates opened at 6 p.m.

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">"We had 2,000 bats and they were gone in 26 minutes," said Peter Bragan Jr., the Suns vice president and general manager. "There was an excitement in the air. Everyone seemed to be excited, but that's what fame does to people."

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Harding, 30, gained fame as one of the nation's top figure skaters during the early 1990s. However, she gained infamy when associates of her husband at the time staged an attack on her rival, Nancy Kerrigan, prior to the U.S. Championships. The attacker clubbed Kerrigan in the knee with a black baton, which knocked her out of the competition. Harding later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution, was stripped of her national skating title and banned from skating competitively in the United States.

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> 

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Harding signed the bats with a gold pen.

---