Not just the Cape League. The Northwoods League is pretty big too. The Valley League in Virginia. And so on and so on.
If you live in a “cold weather” state, you don’t know about SEC baseball. The top schools will average between 8k and 10k on the season. It’s not unusual for teams to average between 4k and 6k. A lot of those games are basically tailgates in inside the stadiums. It’s a crazy scene for someone who’s never been.
As others have mentioned, it’s geared towards families, is cheap, and a relatively good time when you don’t have a real vested rooting interest.
$5 tickets, cheap beers and dogs. Tons of fun at a very old stadium watching our friends' son (plays 3B for Kalamazoo College) go up against D1 players.
After making D3 All American, he was picked up by the Kalamazoo Growlers, which does similar family friendly antics of the Savannah Bananas. Looking forward to another summer of small stadium baseball.
The West Michigan Whitecaps seem big in comparison even.
Went to a Durham Bulls game last weekend and learned that pitchers, catchers, and/or batters can challenge ball & strike calls (I believe each team is limited to 3-4 such challenges).
When a call is challenged, it works like the tennis review system...a 3-D representation of the ball passing through the strike zone is shown on the tron. Takes almost no time at all, and the ruling is final.
The home plate ump at the game went 0/4 on challenges. Made me wonder...shouldn't something be done about a guy missing 4 ball/strike calls during one game?
... ball/strike calls most games. I would imagine minor league umps are even worse.
It's difficult to get calls right all the time when the ball moves. Also most umpires anticipate the location of the pitch by the catcher's glove, making calls more difficult when the pitch is off-target (and perhaps still a strike). The swing or check swing is also a difficult call at times
The blatant misses are certainly a concern.
I went to an Iowa Cubs game last year, fully prepared to be bored. I had a great time, and the game only took about 2.5 hours. The pitch clock speeding up the game made such a big difference. Less time sitting around, waiting while yet another pitcher comes in, adjusts himself, throws a few times, then the batter steps out, adjusts himself, practices swinging... ugh.
The food was good, the baseball was good, there was entertainment between innings. And it was NOT expensive at all.
I think the product is very attractive from a time management perspective. Instead of travelling/parking taking hours of your life you’re getting there in minutes. It’s closer to a movie in length than what a sporting event used to be. So you can go to it as casually as you would a movie. And it’s outside.
I’ve been taking my kids whenever I can fit it in and that’s the other benefit, a lot more flexibility rather than a huge event plan and sunk cost that could be ruined by something coming up.
High A ball right here in the Bend.
Was at opening night last week and it's just a good relaxed time and pretty good baseball to boot. It's geared towards families and family entertainment.
And for those who remember the old "Cove", now Four Winds Field, there is even a $45M renovation/expansion planned
It’s not only the best entertainment value in the area, but just a great experience overall. The Cove went from a dump to one of the best stadiums in the minors.
The baseball is bad, but I’ve never paid for a ticket so it’s hard to complain.
My wife’s company has outings up on the left field side above the tiki.
Food, drink and oh yeah baseball.
MLB apparently slapped a bunch of requirements on the league for stadiums, and our 10 year old stadium didn't qualify. Very frustrating.
Hopefully the new one (thankfully mostly private money) will have more options to go with the costs, but it's also bulldozing 2 of our rec fields, so my beer league softball team is not amused.
I think the primary appeal of minor league baseball to me is that I don't especially care about the roster (unless there's a guy sent down for rehab/etc that is a known quantity), but I do like that I can go out, see a game, have some sort of fandom, and spend less than $20. Try that in the majors.
The Saint of Second Chances about Bill Veeck's son Mike.