There's nothing quite like the down-home atmosphere of a minor league baseball game.
This I learned at countless Kenosha Twins games in the late 1980s. Further confirmation was found at other Midwest League games in Madison and Beloit and farther afield, watching games in the stadiums of teams like the Tidewater Tides and Louisville Redbirds, among others.
Though the Lakeshore Chinooks are not technically a minor league team – the Northwoods League is an amateur league that doesn't pay its players to preserve their NCAA eligibility – their games, played at Kapco Park on the idyllic Concordia University campus, are just as fun.
The action on the field is great. These guys are here to move to the next level and to get some good wood-bat practice during the summer months when their college teams are on hiatus. So, they play hard. They're clearly having fun, but you can see they take it seriously, too.
Between innings the Chinooks organization – which employs many Concordia students, to help give them experience in all aspects of running a franchise – keeps the fun coming, too, with "minnow" races, costume contests and more.
No matter where you sit, you're close to the action. The concessions are good, offering better beer options than a lot of Miller Park points of purchase, and relatively inexpensive. I paid $4 for a Peroni on Saturday.
Kapco is filled with families, enjoying the game and also the play area that has tire swings, a batting care, a bouncy house and more fun for the kids. It's a grand day out.
Dear Chinooks, we'll be back!
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
