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Game No. 2,864 begins with 14 people sitting in the primo behind-home-plate seats at Tucson Electric Park.

Two of them are Sidewinders charting their team's pitches. Three of them are scouts equipped with stopwatches, briefcases and the requisite radar guns.

The remaining nine are presumably authentic baseball fans who have arrived in section 115 a few minutes before Sunday's first pitch. One is former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Pat Darcy, a Tucson real estate executive. Next to him — seat 1, front row — is Darrel Delperdang, who has paid about $1,600 for the seasonal rights to the best seats in the ballpark.

"And that doesn't include $75 to park up close,'' he says with a laugh.

On Sept. 1, Delperdang will drive 19 miles from his Oro Valley residence to see home game No. 2,870. Delperdang would rather have an autographed baseball from his baseball idol, late St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer, but surely the ticket stub from Game No. 2,870 will have sentimental value.

It is expected to be the final game in a 40-year run of Pacific Coast League baseball played by the Sidewinders/Toros in Tucson.

"This whole scene is sad,'' said Darcy, who pitched in the 1975 World Series after a prep career at Rincon High School. "A city of a million people couldn't support Triple-A baseball. Sad.''

Nobody has announced plans to identify the Sidewinders' No. 1 supporter/fan/diehard, but Delperdang can't be any worse than No. 1-A. Since moving to Tucson from San Diego 11 years ago to work in the title security business, he estimates he has attended about 55 home games every season.

"I probably watched 65 when they won the championship two years ago,'' he says. "I spent the final year with the Toros at Hi Corbett Field, and then I came over to TEP. Unlike so many other Tucsonans, I don't find it inconvenient to drive an extra mile or so to watch a ball game.''

His round-trip commute to the ballpark is 38 non-freeway miles.

It makes you pause. Why, Darrel, why? The last-place Sidewinders opened the season 2-17. The atmosphere at most home games hovers between dismal and sleep-inducing. Average attendance at TEP through Sunday was 3,519, last in the PCL by a considerable sum.

"I grew up in San Diego riding my bicycle to the old Triple-A San Diego Padres games in Mission Valley,'' says the 50-something former pitcher, a husband and father of four grown children. "I played baseball until I was 33. I have just never found a substitute for entertainment like watching a baseball game.''

On most nights, Delperdang is accompanied by a business associate or a client or one of his children or Darcy. Front row. Seat 1. He is not a stranger. On Sunday, Sidewinders first base coach Joel Youngblood stops to chat between innings. Youngblood and Darcy were 1970s teammates in Cincinnati. They reminisce about the time Youngblood, an outfielder, was forced to be a catcher.

The talk turns to the awful condition of the playing surface at TEP. Youngblood rolls his eyes. Bare patches of dirt are prevalent in the outfield. Turf has recently been planted around the pitching mound, but it is soft and lumpy. Darcy says he can't recall from his minor-league days a field in worse condition.

"This field has often been unplayable since they moved over from Hi Corbett," Delperdang says. "You can tell from the shape of the field that not many people care about the product."

And yet he makes that 38-mile commute from Oro Valley night after night, year after year. Thirsty Thursdays. Fireworks Fridays. He watched Randy Johnson pitch in the Sidewinders season opener. He witnessed Hall of Famer Paul Molitor play in an injury-rehab assignment at TEP. He looks in the opposing dugout and always recognizes a prominent baseball face: Garry Templeton or Carney Lansford or Terry Kennedy.

This year he watched the prospect-challenged Sidewinders open 1-10, win a game, then lose seven more in succession.

"I've been here when there have been barely 300 people in the stands, but I'm no hero," he says. "The people who owned the season tickets just down the row live in Catalina. Now that's a drive. One year they didn't miss a game."

After Game No. 2,870 on Sept. 1, Delperdang will await an announcement from former Sidewinders owner Jay Zucker, who has suggested he might buy an independent-league team and play a summer schedule at Hi Corbett Field in 2009.

Darcy insists the caliber of baseball in an independent league will be closer to college ball than pro ball. He worries that Tucson's mostly apathetic baseball community will not support the game in that form.

"I've already told my wife that I'll buy season tickets next year," Delperdang says. "If you enjoy baseball, you can't get better entertainment anywhere for $4 a night."