Summertime is baseball time! My dad and later stepmom were sports nuts and always had a radio or TV on listening to some game or post-game talk show, and my brothers were into football, wrestling, and basketball in school.  My nephew went to play in the little league world series. I was happy during college to discover at the time, the Salt Lake Angels (formerly the Salt Lake Bees), which later became the Salt Lake Gulls playing minor league baseball here. The Angels won the PCL title in 1971 and then the Gulls won the last PCL title when they played Hawaii here in 1979. Sadly, the Gulls struggled financially and after 1984 the team was sold and moved to Calgary, Canada but then Joe Buzas moved the Portland Beavers franchise here and named the team ‘the Buzz’. In the mid 2000’s Larry H. Miller bought what had become the Salt Lake Stingers and then changed the name back to the Bees.

Minor league baseball offers major league teams the opportunity to develop young players to hone their skills and prepare for the big leagues. I remember when Mike Trout played for the Bees, the Triple-A affiliate of the L.A. Angels back in 2012. It was only 20 games before he got called up and once there became the first player in MLB history to hit 30 home runs, steal 45 bases and score 125 runs in one season. When Trout was called up to play with the Angels in 2019 he was offered a ten year contract which at the time made him the highest paid athlete in the country at $426.5 million.

That’s the fun of minor league baseball-you never know who’s going to be sent up or sent back from the big leagues from the minors. Seats are usually cheap and families can opt to bring a blanket and sit on the grass making it an extremely affordable activity, not to mention exciting when a home run ball lands at your feet!  We’d go to the stadium on Monday night games sponsored by Smith’s grocery stores for the $5 ticket and hot dog and have great seats. During holidays like the 4^th and 24^th there would be fireworks after the show and seats would be @$30. But whoaaaa Nellie, have you been to the new stadium ticketing website for the Bees at Daybreak? Those same seats are now $180 each!

Despite PR efforts by the Bee’s, friends who live at Daybreak say the stadium isn’t full at all during regular games. We’ll be boycotting the Bees stadium this summer (and possibly forever) and hopping on Frontrunner to spend $15 to see the Ogden Raptors at Linquist Field by the train station to play the Missoula PaddleHeads, Great Falls Chukars, Boise Hawks, Grand Junction Jackalopes or Billings Mustangs in the Pioneer League.