OGDEN — This past February, with the economy dropping harder than a Roy Halladay sinker, Dave Baggott, president of the Ogden Raptors baseball team, huddled with his sales staff to brainstorm ways to get paying customers inside the ballpark this summer.

"We were sitting around trying to figure out how fans could appreciate our value," remembers Baggott, "Then I turned around and completely contradicted what we'd just talked about and said we're going to give away a million tickets."

In all the years professional baseball teams have been in business, nobody, not even Bill Veeck, ever thought of giving away the seats.

The Raptors' 2009 slogan: "Come to the game on us, we've got you covered."

Everybody gets comped.

Prior to the season opener on June 23, Baggott printed the million free ducats and delivered them to McDonald's franchises from Centerville to Brigham City.

To get an absolutely free ticket to a Raptors game, all you have to do is make your way to a participating McDonald's and ask for one. Or a bunch of them. You can pick up enough for your whole company if you want to, no strings attached.

The only exceptions on the 34-game home schedule are the four dates that include fireworks shows and two of those (June 23 and July 1) have already passed. The free tickets are also not good for July 24 and closing day Sept. 11.

Otherwise, every day this summer at Lindquist Field is Bastille Day.

"Everybody deserves to go to the ballpark, whether they can afford it or not," says Baggott, who notes that the million free tickets equates to a $5 million giveaway considering a general admission Raptors ticket normally sells for $5.

"I challenge any other company anywhere to say that in this economic downturn year they gave away $5 million of their product to the consumer," says Baggott.

But he can't help smiling as he says it because A) He's not exactly giving away printed money, and B) Part of the deal is an offer to upgrade the free ticket to a box seat for a mere $5 more — and that includes a $2.50 voucher for food at the concession stands.

"Best seat in the house and something to eat for a couple of bucks," says Baggott.

So far, through eight "free" dates, more than 40 percent of the free tickets have been upgraded, concession sales are brisk and overall attendance is up. A year ago, the average per game was 3,470 fans; this year it's over 3,700 and the season is young.

The jury is still out whether Baggott is a genius or an idiot, but so far it's looking like it might be the former.

This isn't the first time Baggott has looked at what might be seen as a negative and turned it into a positive.