Lugnuts complete 2021 season with changes inside, outside ballpark

Print More
Outside of Jackson Field in Lansing, Michigan

Nick Burt

Jackson Field's gates are locked after the season ended Sept. 19. Many policies were put in place to make sure fans could walk through the gates safely.

Even though the Lansing Lugnuts returned to the field this year after the 2020 season was canceled due to the pandemic, team officials say they still faced a variety of struggles behind the scenes.

The minor league baseball team closed out its 2021 season Sept. 19 with a 58-62 record.

Before the season began, changes were already afoot within the organization. After 15 seasons as the Toronto Blue Jays Class A affiliate, the Lugnuts became High-A affiliates with the Oakland Athletics after Major League Baseball restructured the minor league system. The MLB wanted the Blue Jays Class A affiliate in Canada — the only team located there is the Vancouver Canadians.

“We didn’t pick the A’s, the A’s didn’t pick us. We didn’t ditch the Blue Jays, the Blue Jays didn’t leave us,” said Zac Clark, Lugnuts assistant general manager of sales. “It was surprising at the eleventh hour to see the affiliate change, because all throughout the process, Toronto made it clear that they wanted to stay in Lansing and Lansing was very clear they wanted Toronto to be here.

“You find out really quick where you have a random logo in your ballpark,” Clark said. “Like, ‘Oh, there’s a Blue Jays logo. We need to cover that up.’”

Team officials had to make other plans going into the 2021 season, especially with COVID-19 protocols.

“We made significant changes to the ballpark physically,” said Greg Kigar, assistant general manager of stadium events and operations. 

Jackson Field, the home of the Lugnuts, was restricted to 20% capacity when the Lugnuts season started May 4. Every two rows and every three seats to the left and right of the aisle were closed off to fans. The teams also couldn’t sell more than six tickets in one pod of seats. The team also moved to cashless concessions and added multiple sanitation stations around the ballpark. Officials expect some of those changes may stay around past this season.

The team still was not sure what to expect with the ever-changing nature of the pandemic and health mandates, Clark said. Different plans had to be put in place.

“Leading into 2021, we felt like we had a good plan. We felt like we were ready for the start of the season,” Clark said. “In budgeting for the season, we had three or four budgets ready to go. For a long time, we didn’t know what capacity we would be. We had plans for 20%, 50%, 75% and 100%. We figured by the Fourth of July, we would be back at 75%, maybe 100%.”

But only a month into the season, the state of Michigan lifted all capacity restrictions on outdoor facilities. This meant the Lugnuts were going from 20% to 100% capacity overnight. This left some fans unhappy.

“The messaging (at the beginning of the season) was 20% capacity, masks no matter what,” Clark said. “The feedback we heard was, ‘Thank you for being proactive, we bought tickets.’ And the other half of the fanbase was like, ‘This is ridiculous, we’re not coming.’ But once the capacity changed (back to 100%) the messaging changed. ‘We bought tickets because you said that you would have these requirements and mandates in place’ and the other side was, ‘Well, it’s about time we can go to games.’”

One of the fans who attended a game this season was Shayne Erni, a college student from the Lansing area.

“I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the ballpark,” Erni said. “I was surprised with how well COVID protocols were being followed.”

The Lugnuts averaged just above 3,400 fans this past season, compared to an average of 3,600 in 2019.

The biggest difficulty during the season was trying to find employees to work, Kigar said. By the end of the season, 80% of the positions the Lugnuts had available were still vacant.

Given all the struggles the team faced this season, Kigar said team officials still found positives and are looking forward to next year

“The baseball season went better than we thought it would when looking at where we thought we would be in March and April,” Kigar said. “Hopefully 2022 is more reminiscent of 2019, not 2021.”

Comments are closed.