Pittsburgh Review

On Friday night, the Double-A Altoona Curve celebrated "Extreme Difficulty Night," a promotion designed to test human speed, strength, intelligence, and willingness to embrace futility.

"It came from when our roving camera guy and I were walking around during a slower game," explained Curve director of marketing, promotions, and special events Mike Kessling. "We were just joking around we thought, 'Wouldn't that be so funny -- if we came up with a way to make every [between-innings] game impossible to win?'"

Fans were challenged with tasks such as naming three songs based on one note, knocking down bottle-cap-sized targets from 50 feet away with pop guns that have a 25-foot range, and cleaning the second-base bag with a toothbrush in seconds.

In an industry where attention-grabbing promotions often involve complex licensing deals or booking in-demand personalities, Altoona's concept involved tweaking existing between-innings contests into absurdly hard versions.

Instead of stacking four cans using one hand in a beat-the-clock challenge, fans had to jump over milk crates and stack 10. A game that usually tasked blindfolded fans with finding a prize hidden nearby had the prize dangling out the press box window. Blindfolds were also used for the mascot race, resulting in a collision between Giuseppe the Meatball and Loco.

The trivia question asked a fan to name the 67th word of the Declaration of Independence without any clues. "The guy was determined that he was going to get it," Kessling said. "His guess was 'of,' and my thing was, 'Clearly, everybody knows it's impel.'"

"Extreme Difficulty Night" first rolled out in 2022 and was considered successful due to generating fun despite contestant failures. The front office staff took notes for improvements this year.

"We took what we already have and dialed it up to 11," Kessling said. "We improved upon it so much... people were yelling, 'How are you going to make this difficult?' At the end of the game, I was getting booed -- laughs but boos."

The Curve has been known for "Awful Night," dating back to 2002 where everything was intentionally terrible. MLB.com's Benjamin Hill recently named the 2007 version one of his weirdest ballpark memories. After several seasons off, Altoona brought back "Awful Night" in April this year.

"With the reaction we got, I told our GM Nate Bowen, 'We've got to do it again next year,'" Kessling said. "We'd get a 1-2 punch with what the team was known for and hopefully now something new we're also going to be known for."

Altoona fans appear ready for more extreme difficulty.