We enjoyed a chance to go nuts in downtown Lansing with the Lugnuts baseball team earlier this spring!
Attending a local baseball game, hockey game or any local sporting event seems like one of the best ways to experience a town, its people, fun food and culture to me.
Lansing's reputation as Michigan's state capital is sometimes more buttoned-down and politically serious, but the Lugnuts experience shows the town at its fun and family-friendly best.
The Lugnuts are Lansing's Class A minor league baseball team and Toronto Blue Jays affiliate that plays in the Midwest League.
As a sports fan, I always enjoy seeing young players at the beginning of their pro career with the possibility of saying I saw them when.
(Can you say Tyler Seguin? Seguin is a hockey player we watched for several years as a Plymouth Whaler before he went on to be an important part of a Stanley Cup winning team in 2011 in his rookie year as a Boston Bruin.)
The whole idea of possibly seeing tomorrow's superstar players today aside, I've always found minor league sports a fun and affordable experience.
The Lugnuts baseball franchise originally began life as a team in Lafayette, Indiana in 1955. The team, like many others in the minor leagues, moved around to several different cities and through several different entities before settling in Lansing in 1996.
I do remember hearing a bit about the choice of the team's name, which reflects Lansing's automotive history, and some of the discussion around its appropriateness as name and mascot, but the name and the Big Lug mascot seem to have earned a big place in the hearts of the fans and in the community.
The Big Lug, a purple dinosaur with lug nuts for nostrils, seems to get around everywhere within the stadium--I almost literally ran into him in a hallway near the Clubhouse, which is an upper level lounge on the stadium's suite level offering reserved seating on a balcony for a great view of the game.
The Lugnuts call Cooley Law School Stadium home, and at a capacity of 11,000 people, it is one of the largest Class A ball parks in the country.
The stadium, built for $20 million in 1996, reminds me a bit of the Traverse City Beach Bums' home with its large lawn with seating area in the outfield and a bit of the Toledo Mud Hens' home in the heart of that city's downtown.
Builders specifically tailored the dimensions of the Lugnuts' ball park to its urban setting for a perfect fit within one city block. Our hosts described how one of the team's owners personally paced off the entire area to prove that they could fit a ball field into the spot with just a little room to spare.
Ball park food is always a fun part of a game experience, and I particularly like finding something to eat that is unique to a ball park or its location.
This time out, I heard about the macaroni-and-cheese hot dog and headed straight for the Franx stand to get one. Yum!
Lugnuts ticket prices range from $8 for lawn seating in the outfield, which also has a playground with inflatable games for the kids, to $10 and $11 for reserved and box seating and $22.50 for the Clubhouse seating.
Be sure to check out Tim's take on our Lugnuts experience here.
Want to learn more about the Lugnuts history? Check out Our Lugnuts: Year One! by Bob Roth.
Thanks to the Greater Lansing Michigan Convention and Visitors Bureau for sponsoring my visit to Lansing, providing lodging, meals and a tour of Lansing area attractions for my review during my recent visit there, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
What a cute mascot- and the macaroni & cheese hot dog? That's a new twist on an old favorite. I'm not a huge fan of hot dogs, but the ones at the ball park have always been a different story!
Thanks for linking up to the Best of the USA!
Posted by: Tonya {The Traveling Praters} | June 06, 2013 at 09:20 AM
Mac 'n' cheese dog...I had to try that! The Big Lug is actually some sort of dinosaur I was told, but cute all the same :)
Posted by: Dominique King | June 06, 2013 at 03:35 PM