"Give us a chance, will take it.  Give us any rule will break it. We're going to make that dream come true" - Laverne and Shirley Theme Song

One of my heroes is Ted Turner. Turner took over his family's advertising business after his father's suicide. He became a billionaire and grew that business into a media empire. 

Turner fought the establishment and won. He moved into the public eye when he purchased the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks. He saw value in sports teams that no one else saw. 

The Kentucky version of Ted Turner is Alan Stein, President of the Lexington Legends. Like Turner, Stein had a dream and made it happen. 

I met Alan over 20 years ago when he ran his family's bar, 803 South, which was a favorite spot for University of Kentucky students. When Lexington decided to bulldoze 803 to expand a road, Alan went into advertising. About that time, he started speaking about his idea of bringing minor league baseball to Lexington . 

People laughed at him the same way that people laughed at Turner when he started Cable News Network. Alan tried to get public money to help build a stadium. No luck. Instead Alan had a more novel idea. He got private investors build a stadium. 

Just like Turner, Alan is a great salesman and has a way of getting people excited about his vision. 

Alan tried to get me to invest in the baseball team. My family was in the process of buying a house when Alan came to visit. After an hour with Alan, I almost asked my family to live in a tent and use the house down payment to buy part of the team. I wish we had. We would be living a much nicer house now. The team has broken attendance records and been a raging success. 

Former Kentucky Secretary of State and Auditor Bob Babbage was one of those people Stein convinced to be a part owner of the team. Babbage said "Alan talked to me about the legacy effect. He showed me that bringing a team to Lexington would make the community a better place and give us something we could leave for our children. Alan did not focus simply on profits. He focused having a long term impact on our quality of life." 

I've never met Ted Turner but he can seem obnoxious while Alan is a soft spoken gentleman. Both have tremendous energy and will go any place, any time to sell their ideas. Turner had an rare illness caused by frequent flying in airplanes as he flew around the world promoting his business. Alan works by car but is constantly promoting the team. 

Most people don't remember that the Atlanta Braves were a laughing stock when Turner purchased them and Turner pulled all kinds of crazy stunts to the team noticed. 

Selling minor league baseball is a whole lot tougher than selling the major leagues. Minor League fans don't have superstars like Hank Aaron. You have to sell the experience. 

The Lexington stadium is a fun place to bring your family. It has a nice restaurant, party rooms and a wonderful playground for children. People can have a great time without watching a minute of the game. 

Like Turner, Alan is a genius at getting publicity. He has an opening day tradition of doing something silly if his team loses. I don't think they have won one yet. He has shaved his head, eaten dog food and done other things. 

My favorite was when he decided he would sleep on the field until the team won. The team kept losing in bad weather so Alan had to stay in a small tent during driving rainstorms. 

He came up a less rigorous punishment the next year. The team lost anyway. 

Alan understands entertainment and knows that it is not how many tickets you sell but making sure fans use them. I've missed several games that I had tickets for and Alan let me know that "empty seats don't buy hot dogs." 

I'll keep coming out to the stadium just to watch Alan work. It is really fun to see someone making his dream come true. 

Don McNay is President of McNay Settlement Group where we hope our clients have their dreams come true too. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text88517 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com