May 25 and 26
- Whitecaps 2 games, Lugnuts 0 games
- Lugnuts are 23-26 (.469)
- Third place, 5.5 games behind the Whitecaps, two behind the Battle Cats, and one ahead of the Wizards.
Saturday’s game looks like it was all right, but Sunday’s was a sorry affair. The Whitecaps played a poor game, but the Lugnuts let ’em win it anyway. WOOD Radio’s broadcast (1300 AM) of the game was on tape delay, so I got to hear the worst part of the game again from Whitecaps announcer Rick Berkey while I drove home. Can’t say I liked it any better the second time, but I like listening to Berkey.
The Journal says the Royals intend to fill the vacancy created by Blosser’s injury with a draftee. Perhaps they’ll find us some pitching, too.
The team’s reported attendance through Sunday is 171,263. That’s about what the Battle Cats [Battle Creek’s Midwest League team] drew for all of last season; their attendance was eighth (of fourteen) in the league. Obviously the teams have differing opinions about the importance of these things….
Here’s the best team attendance for each full-season minor league, through Memorial Day’s games:
AAA American Association Buffalo 193,437 International League Richmond 165,040 Pacific Coast League Salt Lake City 194,684 AA Eastern League Trenton 135,101 Southern League Birmingham 102,193 Texas League San Antonio 133,131 A California League Rancho Cucamonga 149,040 Carolina League Durham 107,141 Florida State League Brevard County 51,614 Midwest League West Michigan 171,738 South Atlantic League Delmarva 90,353
Obviously there is demand for minor league baseball in Michigan.
Lansing’s ticket sales, to date, have topped 450,000. I’m impressed; I think you can call this experiment a success.
A couple interesting things:
Dean Travel is offering a tour to see the Lugnuts visit the Rockford Cubbies on July 20. Call the team at 485-4500 for more information.
Manuel Delgado tells me he is selling photographs taken from above Oldsmobile Park on opening day (night). I haven’t seen them and offer this mention without comment or endorsement. Contact him for information at [link removed].
Rick Berkey, like most sports announcers, has his detractors. I’m not one of them….
One of my LugNotes objectives was to educate my readers about where the local team fit into professional baseball’s universe. Thus the attendance discussion.
A colleague at work took, and enjoyed, the Rockford bus trip. She sat next-section-over at the Lansing park, and we occasionally saw each other at games.
I saw at least one of Manuel Delgado’s photographs later in the year. It was excellent; I’m glad I plugged his effort.
The Midwest League on the Web in 1996 (part 2)
Midwest League news coverage and team fan pages on the web, as of the end of the 1996 season:
The World Wide Web was young in 1996. I’ve called the early baseball website developers “cowboys” in the past, and stand by that characterization–none of us knew what we were doing. Some of us did better than others. One of the Web’s strengths is that it makes self-publishing easy. It’s also one of the Web’s weaknesses.
In the event you’ve just stumbled onto this entry, here’s an explanation of what I’m up to.