Jackson Field: Home of the Lansing Lugnuts
Lansing Lugnuts (High-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics since 2021)
Established: 1996
League: Midwest League
Ballpark: Jackson Field (opened 1996)
Championships: 1997, 2003
Notable Alumni: Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Noah Syndergaard, Carlos Beltrán, Rich Hill, Carlos Zambrano
About me: My name is Sam and I have been a baseball fan my entire life. I grew up in Syracuse, New York and went to plenty Syracuse Chiefs games (now known as the Syracuse Mets). I have always enjoyed the flare and personality that minor league baseball has. In my high school years, I started to dream of visiting every minor league ballpark, so here I am!
About the blog: The purpose of this blog is to inform readers about each minor league ballpark. Hopefully readers will be inspired to do the same journey as me! Each post will follow the same format (at least I'll do my best). I will open with my personal experience which might include a story or two. Then I will highlight the three main aspects that I think are important to the overall experience, location/scenery/amenities, food/drinks, and entertainment. Finally, I will give each ballpark a grade out of 100.
Without further ado...
Jackson Field sits in the small city of Lansing, Michigan. As I drove up to Lansing, I was very underwhelmed by the city (if you want to call it that) and the surrounding scenery. Having never been to Lansing, I was assuming the state capital would have a respectable downtown area. Morale of the story is to never assume. There were a few tall building a few blocks down, but I would not put my reputation on the line to call that a city. The way we drove in was dirty and run down, which encapsulates 99% of Michigan.
Once we got to the ballpark, I thought we had the game time wrong because there couldn't have been more than 150 people in the ballpark. Spoiler: I did not have the game time wrong. The lack of fans really impacted the entertainment aspect of my experience.
Location/ Scenery/ Amenities (1/5)
As I stated in the opening, I was really disappointed by the lack of vibrance the city had. I love a good downtown, skyscrapers in the background type of ballpark. However, it is not the worst I've seen. The ballpark was nice on the inside and the outfield view featured an apartment building that was connected to the ballpark. Tenants could watch games from their deck and the ground floor of the building looked like a restaurant or lounge of some sort.
Food (3.7/5)
The food and drink scene was one of the best parts of my experience. I chose the Lugnut BBQ dog ($9.50) and I also splurged on a hard blueberry cider ($6). There was many more options such as Chinese, Philadelphia cheesesteaks, and pizza in addition to the traditional hot dogs and burgers that are found in every stadium. The hot dog was amazing and truly satisfied me for the whole game, however, I always incorporate the value of the food in my score. The food lost some points due to the high prices. The dog was great but not ten dollars great. There was plenty other dishes I wished to try but the prices became an obstacle. I must note, I saw 'boozy ice cream' on the third base concourse that I was tempted to try. Still interested in how that works.
Entertainment (1/5)
Like I said before, the lack of attendance made my experience harder to cherish. The on-field games were generic and not anything special. The marketing team really does put in effort to energize the crowd but it just wasn't working out this game. The score speaks for itself, other than the baseball game there wasn't anything to write home about.
Sam's Score: 38/100
I was far from impressed with Jackson Field. I added a few curtesy points since it was a nice modern stadium with solid food options. However, the overall vibe of the stadium lacked zest. When you have a High-A team, aka players that not many people recognize, I feel that the entertainment aspect really needs to be nailed home and in this case it was not. Overall, if your in the area and haven't been to Jackson Field, take a day trip and experience it for yourself but I wouldn't go out of my way to go to another game.
This is my first 'true' ballpark review. I am going to try and keep the format of this as simple as possible but I might add or remove things if my vision changes. Follow me on my instagram @samhhughes and message me if you have any suggestions or ideas, it's always appreciated!
