A night visiting the Whitecaps is a classic Minor League experience

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The following ballpark road trip recap is presented by Wyndham, proud sponsor of *Minor League Ballpark Guides*. Start planning your 2025 road trips today!

My ballpark road trip narratives have been a regular feature of this newsletter for the past five months. Now, we’ve reached the beginning of the end. The first stop of my fifth and final sojourn of the season was Comstock Park, home of the West Michigan Whitecaps.

Comstock Park is located just to the north of Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in Michigan. Detroit is the state’s largest city, of course; the Whitecaps, quite sensibly, are the High-A affiliate of the Tigers. The team was established in 1994, in conjunction with the construction of the privately financed stadium that is today known as LMCU Park.

Quite a bit has changed at LMCU Park since I last visited in 2013, an evening when I danced atop the dugout, awarded a plunger to a man who didn’t want one and dressed up like a Viking.

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In January of 2014 a fire -- caused by a heater in one of the suites -- caused extensive damage to the first-base side of the ballpark. It took firefighters from five departments three hours to put it out and resulted in a rushed and ultimately successful rebuild in time for Opening Day. More recently, and more happily, LMCU Park has begun and is currently in the midst of a massive, multiphase renovation project.

Phase I was largely focused on improving player amenities, including (but far from limited to) new clubhouses.

Phase II of the project focuses on fan-facing improvements, meaning that LMCU Ballpark will soon look considerably different. There will be larger group spaces on the first- and third-base sides, a suite-level club space and a wider concourse expanded to a full 360 degrees.

Upon arriving in Grand Rapids on Friday, Aug. 23, all I wanted to be was fan-facing. As in, asleep in front of a fan. Instead I hightailed it straight to the ballpark, arriving at 1 p.m. My arrival happened to coincide with Max Clark’s weekly media availability, and it was worth my while to talk to the 19-year-old uber-prospect (the Tigers’ first pick in the 2023 Draft).

As it turned out I was the only media member who showed up to speak with Clark, so he and I had a wide-ranging in the visitor’s broadcast booth. That conversation was featured in full in an episode of The Show Before The Show podcast.

After speaking with Clark, I spoke with pitcher Matt Miller about how a stint with the Savannah Bananas changed his professional outlook. I then left the ballpark for lunch and, yes, a nap, returning when the gates opened. On this evening the Whitecaps were playing as the Beer City Bung Hammers.

This identity is a nod to the Grand Rapids region’s preponderance of breweries. As for the inevitable follow-up question, the Whitecaps explain it thusly: “A bung hammer is a specialized tool for sealing and unsealing the bung in the side of a barrel when aging craft beer. ... A bung is a wooden stopper for the opening in a barrel. So, the bung hammer is used to fit the bung into the bunghole of a barrel.

To learn more, pick up a copy of the Whitecaps’ gameday program. It exists in physical form, printed on actual paper. In today’s landscape that makes it a throwback.

The Whitecaps have been a Tigers affiliate since 1997. And since 1997, the same two men have formed the backbone of the in-game experience. Michael Newell (left) and Bob Wells both auditioned for the PA job prior to that ’97 campaign. Newell got that job, and Wells was hired as the on-field host. They just completed their 28th season together.

It was a beautiful evening for High-A Midwest League baseball and the people of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area were ready for it. It was 78 degrees with a light breeze, what more could you want from life than to be in an environment like this?

Almost 8,000 fans agreed that this was the place to be.

Wandering the concourses made me appreciate the extent to which the upcoming renovations to the concourse will be beneficial. The concourses are narrow and ringed with food carts; space, infinite in some contexts, was at a premium. I pushed through the throngs in order to meet my Designated Eater, Tom Good, and his girlfriend, Rebecca.

Tom and Rebecca drove all the way from Milwaukee for this game. Tom’s an engineer -- “a numbers guy through and through” -- who became interested in the Minor Leagues via playing fantasy baseball. Tom made an impression on me before I met him, as he once wrote me an email explaining that he believes “in the notion of 5th dimensional projections through a 4th dimensional lens onto our 3rd dimensional state of being.” (This was in response to a question about extraterrestrials I posed in this newsletter. It didn’t come out of nowhere.)

The Whitecaps have long been known for their creative and ever-changing food menu, with past standouts including the gargantuan Fifth Third Burger and the Baco (taco fillings in a bacon shell). A full accounting of all the team’s current concession highlights would take up space that I don’t have. So we’ll stick to three.

The Rice Bowl cart has one menu item, and I bet you can guess what it is. But from one, many: There are two kinds of rice, four kinds of protein, six toppings and five sauces to choose from. Tom’s bowl was Latin rice, burnt ends, tomato, pickled onion, cheese and sriracha.

Tom regretted his choice of sriracha -- relatively undynamic -- but deemed the rice bowl to be “very good.” Rebecca, meanwhile, praised the smoky flavor of the burnt ends.

From burnt ends come new beginnings, as we now move on to Gyro Nachos (gyro toppings served on pita chips):

“Not bad, and not a bad idea either,” said Rebecca.

“As far as takes on nachos go, this is one of the most interesting I’ve seen,” added Tom.

Hey, it’s all Greek to me.

We ended our journey at what is perhaps Minor League Baseball’s most memorably-named concession stand: The Queso Castle, located at the far end of the third-base concourse.

Items ordered at the Queso Castle can be topped with six different kinds of cheese. We cut right to the chase and ordered a Frycuterie Box ($30): waffle fries, jalapeño bacon firecrackers, tots, cheese wedges and a variety of dips, served in a large pizza box. It was a Fry-day night, after all.

The Frycuterie Box was too much for two people to handle. Rebecca said, “Going to a baseball game with a bunch of friends, I’d want to get this.”

Leaving Tom and Rebecca to their copious leftovers and as well as their own devices, I ran to the press box and spent an inning on the radio with the voice of the Whitecaps, Dan Hasty. He’s a pro’s pro who proffers knowledge and humor in appropriate dosages throughout every broadcast.

My evening slowed down a bit after that. At one point I watched fans compete in a “Bobbing for Bungs” contest, thereby crossing off another item on my bucket list.

A beautiful evening turned into a beautiful night, as beautiful evenings are wont to do.

Prior to the postgame fireworks, staff, costumed characters and fans alike danced to the 1987 anthem “Walk the Dinosaur.” Doing the “dino dance” is a longstanding Whitecaps tradition. I’m not sure how it started, but it’s a long way from extinct.

Good night from Comstock Park, Mich., where I enjoyed an evening both majestic and fast-moving. Grand and rapid, in other words.