AVON — As the 2009 Frontier League champi­onship banner hanging from the center-field flag­pole can attest, the Lake Erie Crushers know what they are doing on the baseball field.

The Crushers, in their sec­ond season of operation, apparently have a pretty good idea how to run things off the field as well.

A year after pitcher Josh Faiola’s stay in a local retire­ment community made national headlines, the Crushers once again went viral with Wednesday night’s “Keep LBJ in the C-L-E” promotion at All Pro Freight Stadium.

The promotion, which is geared toward getting Cavaliers star LeBron James to re-sign with Cleve­land, brought out 4,071 fans, a visit from the Wit­ness- mobile and earned manager John Massarelli a guest spot on ESPN2’s “First Take” earlier in the day. “Having two (news items) in two years go viral, that’s pretty amazing,” Crushers general manager Ryan Gates.

“Now it’s becoming a situation where we’re sitting around asking ourselves, ‘What can we do to top it?’” Minor league baseball teams have become known for their inventive and wacky promotions, all with the intention of putting fans in the stands.

Teams across the country have given away funeral services, college courses and even — in the case of Cleveland Indians Single-A franchise Mahoning Valley — liposuction at the local plastic surgeon.

And cashing in on celebrities during a promotion is nothing new, as the St.

Louis Scrappers have given away Michael Vick chew toys for dogs and Sen. Larry Craig bobblefoot dolls over the past few seasons.

But rarely does an independent baseball team put as much effort into a promotion as the Crushers did on this one.

“I really have to give Mazz the credit for bringing it up,” Gates said. “We were on a conference call with (owner) Steve Edelson, Mazz and myself, and Mazz just kind of said that we should try and sign LeBron James to a maximum contract.”

From there, the staff began brainstorming and coming up with ideas for the night. The Crushers offered James and any other potential free agents — including Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — a suite for the night to hold a summit while they watched the game.

The team renamed the playing surface “LeBron James Field” and it offered $6 tickets to any fan who wore Cavs gear to the game.

“I was shocked by the amount of fans that showed up wearing Cavs stuff,” Gates said. “It was like a sea of wine and gold in the parking lot before the game.”

Special wine-colored jerseys were designed for the players to wear — all No. 6 to support James’ jersey switch next season — and the jerseys were auctioned off to fans after the game. The team also gave away T-shirts with the design — Crushers across the front in the design of the Cavaliers script logo — to the first 1,000 fans Wednesday night.

Gates didn’t seem too surprised by the large turnout because he had already spent all of his amazement on the speed with which news of the promotion had spread.

“We sent out the press release and within a few hours it was on the front page of ESPN.com,” Gates said. “The biggest thing with any promotion like this is you have to go all in with it and that’s what we did. The workers all bought the jerseys and they hung up LeBron signs around the stadium. Everyone really bought into the idea.”

The promotion brought several television crews to the game, and the owners of the website www.pleasedontleave23.com brought their custom-designed 1987 Cutlass Supreme to the front gate of the stadium. The Witness-mobile is white with black Nike swooshes and a huge MVP on the hood. The group has begun collecting signatures on the mobile petition — including those of Troy Smith, Bernie Kosar, Austin Carr, Terrelle Pryor and Eddie George during Smith’s charity golf outing earlier this week.

The car will be making another stop at the Put-In-Bay bar in Lakewood tonight.

“It’s important to Cleveland and its surrounding areas for LeBron to stay in our area,” Gates said. “That’s why the crowd came out here tonight, to show LeBron how important he is to them.”

Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

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