The Underappreciated Value of Minor League & Collegiate Sports

What makes for the best sports entertainment experience? Ask 100 sports fans; men and women, children and emotional support animals and you’ll get 100 differing opinions. Dogs might not be able to actually tell you in detail, but I bet they really appreciate “Bark in the Park” night at the ball park as well as a left over piece of hot dog. But, is the value and enjoyment of a sports team tied to the team’s professional ranking? Does your positive experience need to be tied to a MLB, NHL, MLS, NFL or NBA team? I am arguing that the answer is an emphatic “NO”.

Some of my most memorable and positive sports entertainment encounters came from non-professional, collegiate and minor league games. In fact, most of my favorite sports experiences were obtained from watching teams in which I carried no personal connection. Depending on the part of the country I happened to be working in and whatever stadium I walked into, I simply chose to be a supporter of the home team. Buy an inexpensive ticket. Grab a $2 hot dog. Order a beer. Root for the home team. Enjoy a couple hours of cheap entertainment. Maybe even buy a hat or a jersey to support the team. What a great way to enjoy an evening.

I wanted to run down a list of some of my favorite experiences and you may notice that the team examples seemed to be skewed towards the team oriented sports of hockey and baseball. There’s a reason for that.

Over the years I’ve shed most of my personal attachment and interest in basketball and football mainly because of the shift towards the “me, me, notice me, it’s all about me” culture. My home basketball team could be down by 30 points with 2 minutes left in the fourth and one of our guys strips a ball to make a dunk and then pounds his chest in front of the camera as if that was THE play of the game. Yes, while your team lost. It’s important to know it’s all about you. Football? Same. When down by 21 points at the 2 minute warning, it’s a little late to celebrate a sack on the winning quarterback with a body builder pose at mid field. Hockey and baseball players still (mostly) work as a team, celebrate as a team and share wins and losses as a team. I prefer to spend my time and money watching those sports, and college and minor league teams play their hearts out because they love to, not because they’re paid to.

In no particular order, here are some of my favorites:

1. Lake Superior State “Lakers” hockey and the Norris Center Arena.

There’s nothing more alluring than a small town like Sault Saint Marie, Michigan and the community energy that gets infused into a college hockey team on a cold Saturday night. Not a big enough town to support a professional sports franchise and not a big enough campus or budget to draw high profile college hockey players, but somehow the Lakers form a great team each year anyway. As with most all of our favorite examples, the seats are close to the action and the prices are cheap but the sound of the horn alone when the Lakers score a goal is worth the price of admission. An actual ship’s air horn vibrates the entire stadium, shakes the stands and acts as a natural laxative, coaxing your innards to massage any stuck food along it’s merry way. This is the absolute best sound from any hockey venue I’ve ever visited, period. Should the Lakers win, join the team after the game as they ring the ships bell just outside the main entrance. This is a “must see” if you’re ever in Michigan’s north country in winter.

2. Toledo Mudhens Baseball

A little more than an hour south of the Detroit city line and you’ll find a very cool baseball park in Toledo, Ohio that hosts a Detroit Tigers affiliate called the Mudhens. While in town before an afternoon game, be sure to stop into Tony Packo’s for a hot dog and some of their famous local chili which is another “must” when heading to Toledo for a game. Being a Tigers affiliate these days means the quality of this minor league baseball team is pretty good, and they always give you a competitive game. The secondary benefit of minor league baseball is that you can take a small crowd of people to the game and it won’t require a small business loan to do it. A really nice park, good food and great seating await you during a wonderfully warm Spring day.

3. Ferris State “Bulldogs” Hockey

I love the name of the town hosting Ferris State University. It’s known as Big Rapids, Michigan and though situated near the Saginaw River you’d have a hard time finding river rapids the likes of which Snake River Canyon kayakers might call “worthy”. But this is a cool little college town and Bulldog Hockey is the main event on a Saturday night during cold Winter months. It is a small hockey stadium with low rise bleacher seating just on one side of the ice, so you need to get your tickets in advance. It was also a short drive from our first family cabin so this was a great option for weekend entertainment in Winter. I went to enough games that I was cajoled into buying a vintage jersey, er, I mean sweater. These guys always seem competitive from year to year and manage to keep themselves in NCAA Division 1. Credit also goes to the college community who kept a few old alumni from renaming the college “Ferris University”. And yes, people needed to explain to those old folks that naming the college with the branded letters “FU” probably wasn’t a good idea.

4. Frisco Rough Riders Baseball

Years ago working for a client near Plano, Texas, I wound up attending a few minor league baseball games in Rider Stadium outside of Frisco, Texas. While this wasn’t a direct AAA affiliate of any major league baseball team at that time, the stadium was pretty sweet. A new construction with an open feel around the park, lots of great elevated seating with unobstructed views, and really great food options on the upper concourse. There were game stoppage activities and fun stuff for the kids all throughout the game and the best part, the most memorable part was the “Pass the Boot” activity if any of the Riders players hit a home run. You see, most of these guys didn’t get paid much money at all requiring them to keep day jobs in order to pay bills. So, if anyone hit a dinger, went yard, or sent Mr Rawlings out of the park, the staff passed around a cowboy boot to take up a collection for the player. Half went to the player and the other half went to the team’s charity. I thought that was awesome. Almost as awesome as the hot dogs there. I wonder if they still do that… it’s been years since I’ve been back to Texas. Let me know!

5. Milwaukee Admirals Hockey

Living in Wisconsin for about 7 years you get used to the fact that this medium sized sports market probably can’t financially support all major league sports franchises. There was always Brewers baseball and Bucks basketball and the Green Bay Packers who used to play some games in Milwaukee now stay up north at Lambeau Field. But if you’re a hockey fan, Milwaukee could never swing a NHL franchise. However, the Admirals remain a top level affiliate of the Nashville Predators and host a pretty decent team each year, with near NHL fan attendance. It is a large stadium, enough for a small blimp to fly around and drop free tickets and food vouchers during the intermissions, and the ticket prices are a little higher than other minor league teams but it is a nice venue for a hockey game. Yes, this is another team where I felt compelled to buy a jersey, er, dammit, sweater. I guess my jersey is now considered vintage based on how long ago we lived there. Does that vintage status make me cooler? I can only hope. I need all the cool mojo I can get.

6. Great Lakes Loons Baseball

Now that we live somewhere near Saginaw and Midland Michigan, it was nice to have a minor league sports teams nearby. While Saginaw hosts a Western Conference OHL team called the Spirit, we haven’t been to a game yet. However, there’s a pretty competitive baseball team in Midland called the Loons and we have gone to about 10 games in the last couple years. These guys are a LA Dodgers affiliate, but we try not to hold that against them. The Dow Diamond stadium is new and very well designed and I am particularly fond of the reserved seating space available everywhere in the stadium. I happen to be almost six and a half feet tall, specifically 77 ½ inches, and my knees are almost always, painfully up on the back of the seat in front of me. Not in this stadium. There’s plenty of room here. I also love that the very front row seats are only $18, and include a nice little drink and food rail in front off you. If you sit just to the right or left of home plate you can see the wicked motion of the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand. I love that too. “Ooh, wicked slider. Unhittable”. Want to take a family? There’s huge grassy areas down the first base line and in the outfield where you can drop a blanket and get tickets for about $10 each, and still have a great view of the game. So back to our premium seating example, here’s a truly entertaining live sports entertainment event that you can attend with a buddy in the front row, like some of the best seats in the house, eat your fill of great stadium food, have your beerski and get out of there for far less than $100 total. I’m not sure I can add any more weight to the value argument when Detroit Lions tickets average $140 each. No parking, No food. No beerskis. Case closed.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

# The Hershey Bears Hockey Team, Hershey, PA

On an early Spring trip a couple years ago, we toured around the Allegheny Mountains in Pennsylvania and of course spent some time and money at the Hershey factory store too. If you happen to like chocolate it’s simply unamerican not to visit this chocolate manufacturing destination. The town is pretty cool too. But nearby, is the “Giant Center” where the Hershey Bears AHL hockey team plays. At least this was our plan; to snag a couple tickets for a game during the week we were in town. Of course I never checked the team schedule and they turned out to be at away games all that week. That didn’t stop me from supporting the team, especially when the team merch store was open during regular business hours. I did get to see the stadium which is quite large, on a similar scale to the Milwaukee Admirals home ice, and I did kind of like the Bears logo, so we bought a couple items too. There see? Support your local minor league sports team!

# The Omaha Golden Spikes – Rosenblatt Stadium, Omaha

Back at the turn of the century… (when do you ever get a chance to make a statement like that), I was working in Omaha for several months. I loved the people there. I loved the Upstream Brewing Company nearby for burgers and craft brews, and I loved going to minor league games at Rosenblatt stadium. Back in 2000, the local team was the Golden Spikes, now one of my favorite baseball caps, and Rosenblatt stadium was the site of the annual NCAA baseball world series. Those days are long gone as is the baseball team and the stadium, but the memories of Omaha, the UBC brewery before owning a microbrewery was cool, and the majestic Rosenblatt stadium are still with me.

The WRAP

And so, my romance with minor league and collegiate sports is now written but the love story continues. On to the next season. On to affordable tickets, good food, a beverage or three and some solid sports entertainment from the comfort of a generously sized seat.

I plead guilty on missing a wood shop topic. I guess this wasn’t a wood shop themed blog at all. Unless you consider that the best baseball bats are turned on a wood lathe using clear Maple.

HA! See what I did there? Wood shop theme sorted… as my UK friends like to say. Oh, and in case you’re wondering if I make all these stories up? See the merch photo below!