By: Brian Frank
The Bisons open their season against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on March 29, 2024, the earliest opening day in Buffalo's 139 seasons of professional baseball. The Herd Chronicles caught up with manager Casey Candaele, outfielders Cameron Eden and Rafael Lantigua, and infielders Damiano Palmegiani and Leo Jimenez to talk about Opening Day and the 2024 Bisons team.
Casey Candaele. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles
Opening Day is a special day on the baseball calendar. What does Opening Day mean to you?
Casey Candaele: "It’s a rebirth. You’re starting anew. Players are all excited to get going. We’re ready for another season and another challenge. It’s just exciting to get going again. You grind out a season and then yougo and get done and you reflect back and take a break – but then about two or three weeks into it, you go – okay, when does it start again? It’s special."
Cameron Eden: "It means getting back to it. This is a really big part of my life, playing baseball . It feels pretty familiar and it’s really nice to get back to it."
Rafael Lantigua: "You always have the little butterflies in your stomach. It’s so fun to be back. It’s always a very special day for me."
Damiano Palmegiani: "It means the start of a new season and a lot to be grateful for. We get to playa game for a living right now. As fun as it is to look ahead and see what could happen, I think it’s important to just be grateful for what we have today."
Damiano Palmegiani. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles
What can fans expect to see from this season’s Bisons team?
Candaele: "We’ll have some growing pains, I think. We’re young, but we have talent. You look at things on paper and people say things. Nowadays in sports there are always predictions about how this is going to project out – this is what’s going to happen and they have it all figured out before it’s all done. But in the end you’ve still got to go out and play the games and players have to produce and they have to step up to the challenge and do things. We have guys that are capable of it. It’s just a matter of coming out and doing it. It’s exiting though. We’re young, like I said, but we’ll grow through the season and hopefully end up on an up note."
"I have two objectives, one is to get as many of these guys to the big leagues to help these guys win a a World Series and number two is to go to Vegas (to the Triple-A National Championship game)."
Eden: "You’re definitely going to see a lot of hustle and a lot of effort. We’re going to play our hearts out and compete. I think we’re all going to come together. It’s a good group of guys that all get along pretty well. So you’ll see a very unified team and slot of wins."
Lantigua: "I would say we have a younger team. We have the desire to win. You’ll see a great effort every time. You’ll see a hard effort team, playing hard to win every day."
Palmegiani: "I think we’re a lot younger than a lot of the teams around the league. Our talent level and just who we are as a team – I think we’re a pretty fun team to watch. I think you’re going to see some good pitching, a lot of offense, and a lot of defense. It’s going to be a really fun season – all 150 (games)."
Leo Jimenez: “We have a lot of great talent on this team this year. Every time I walk into the clubhouse, I see a lot of talent, a lot of young talent, guys that are here to actually win. Show up every single day with the same mentality of hey we’re coming to the ballpark to win games. That’s what fans can expect from us, that we’ll go out there every single day and give everything we have on the field to win ballgames.”
Rafael Lantigua. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles