Boomers GM brings pro baseball background to job
With more than 20 years of experience in professional baseball, General Manager Pete Laven has a good idea of what he can expect - and what he can't - during his first year of running the back-to-back Frontier League champion Schaumburg Boomers.
"Nothing surprises me that happens at a stadium," Laven said. "Any time you think you've seen it all, you haven't. That's what makes it interesting."
Though the 2015 season is Laven's first handling the daily operations of the Boomers, it is his third as president for the team's owner, Salvi Sports Enterprises.
The LaGrange native had humble beginnings in the baseball industry. He saw his first minor league game in Kane County in 1991, the same year he graduated from Eastern Illinois University. Soon afterward he worked as an intern with the Los Angeles Angels' minor league team in Little Rock, Ark.
"I swept up peanut shells and mopped up soda stains with five other college graduates, and loved every second of it," Laven said.
Laven has been in baseball ever since, working for a few different teams before going back to the Class AA Arkansas Travelers in 2000.
There, he worked his way up, becoming general manager in 2007 after being named Texas League Executive of the Year in 2006.
Laven's time as Travelers GM included a range of memorable experiences: overseeing the construction of a new stadium; watching prospect Mike Trout briefly play for the Travelers before rapidly ascending to the major leagues; and directing "crazy" promotions.
"For one promotion, we had Jose Canseco come out and box our 64-year-old athletic director," Laven said. "I thought that might be my last day as general manager. I'll never say a bad word about Jose Canseco, because he said he wouldn't hurt the director and he didn't."
After Laven left the Travelers in 2012, he signed on with Salvi Sports as president. He served as interim GM for the Gary RailCats, also owned by Salvi, until the assistant GM was ready to take over.
Thus, when former Boomers GM Andy Viano unexpectedly resigned in early 2015, it made sense for Laven to take the reins, he said.
As Boomers GM, Laven has responsibilities in personnel decisions, salary cap management, advertising, community relations and more, he said.
One major change Laven has implemented in Schaumburg is bringing the food and beverage operations in-house instead of outsourcing them to a third-party company.
That change and others support Laven's goal of making the fan experience "the best it can possibly be" regardless of how the Boomers play, though he said it does help to win consecutive titles and showcase players like pitcher Seth Webster, who was signed by the Atlanta Braves in May.
"For our roles in the front office, we understand that it's not like going to a Cubs or White Sox game, where you live or die with whether the team wins or loses," Laven said. "If somebody leaves the stadium and doesn't know the score, it's almost like we've done our job."
Maintaining a close relationship with the Schaumburg community is also crucial to the team's success, he said.
"Since moving up here and becoming a resident, it's really refreshing to see the way the village and the park district take pride in the stadium and the team here, and want it to succeed," Laven said. "We want to make them proud and they want to be proud of us.
"We want to exceed expectations, because I don't think we've come close to hitting our ceiling here yet. There's a ways to go, and it's such a great market and great ballpark that the sky's the limit."