Class A Team A Major Hit In Michigan

They just keep coming.

Sid has a video recorder in the top row of the outfield seats. Audrey is in a lawn chair behind the bullpen. Close to home plate, Barb concedes that she doesn’t know the players but loves the food.

“I was never much of a weenie woman until I had the hot dogs here,” she says. “You can also be loud and it’s socially acceptable.”

Now in their third season, the West Michigan Whitecaps of the Midwest League are bigger than ever, drawing crowds so large that Old Kent Park’s capacity was recently expanded to approximately 10,700.

In Class A minor-league baseball, only the Lansing Lugnuts match the appeal of the Whitecaps.

In fact, ticket sales here in suburban Grand Rapids and in Lansing trail only Buffalo and Salt Lake City, two clubs in Class AAA, a step away from the majors.

Through Aug. 5, attendance was 432,539. The team expects to easily break last year’s total mark of 507,989.

“This is the greatest place I’ll ever play in the minors,” pitcher Todd Weinberg says, spitting lightly over a dugout wall during a game against South Bend. “The fans are knowledgeable. There’s a guy who figures out my earned run average - while I’m on the mound.”

Old Kent Park is just north of Grand Rapids at a U.S. 131 exit. The team is a regional draw, with fans coming from the city as well as lakeshore towns 45 miles away. The Whitecaps play in Kent County, but when three neighboring counties are also figured in, there’s a population base of 1 million people.

An additional 1,400 seats opened in the outfield July 27. Attendance that day: 10,673.

“We were simply turning too many people away,” general manager Scott Lane says in explaining the expansion. “We thought fans would stop trying if we didn’t make more room.”

Sid Beintema, 49, of Wyoming brings a camera, binoculars and portable radio to games.

“I’ve been to so many, I can’t even count,” he says. “I don’t think the novelty will wear off. We’ve been starved for baseball for so many years.”

Jim Gray, 35, drives 25 miles from Middleville with his son and nephew. He says the talent doesn’t match the major leagues, of course, but the young players are genuine.

“At least these guys run to first base. I take my son to Tiger Stadium and he says, ‘Why don’t they run to first base?’

They also keep this park very clean,” Gray says. “The tickets - my gosh, what are they, three to five bucks?”

Indeed, the Whitecaps promote home games as inexpensive family entertainment. Between innings, young fans race around the bases and oversized mascots work the crowd.

The food stands sell reasonably priced beer, soft drinks, hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers, chili, nachos, ice cream and more.

“I contend that 70 percent of the fans walk out of here not knowing the score,” Lane says. “But they know the bathrooms were clean, the hot dogs were hot and the drinks were cold. If you give them quality at a fair price, they’re loyal.”