They come for the bounce house and the picnic area, for Gia’s Balloon Specialties and the kids’ contests. For the birthday parties and a chance to get an autograph from the Y’all’s mascot – actually a guy in a Y’alls’ uniform wearing that famous water tower head.
They come for concession prices that don’t require a home equity loan and to catch country music between innings as they hang out with friends and neighbors at the ballpark, thanks to the relatively low ticket prices ($11 to $17, although most days there’s some sort of discount).
And they come for the baseball. Professional baseball. Independent minor league baseball that’s continuing a grand American sporting tradition that major league teams signing players to $240 million contracts could no longer afford.
But the kids are back in school. And summer is officially over as is the regular season in the Frontier League featuring Northern Kentucky’s own Florence Y’alls whose league rivals include teams from as far south as Evansville, as far west as St. Louis, from the great metro areas of Chicago and New York City — and for the first time this year, from Canada in the Great North.
The Frontier League has it covered geographically. And not just with the teams’ homes. Y’alls players and coaches will mostly be headed back to the 15 states, two foreign countries and one territory they call home. But for the past four months or so, home has been here in Northern Kentucky, at Thomas More Stadium right off I-71/75 at the US 42 exit.
At least for part of that time. With 48 away games in a league that travels exclusively by bus, that’s a bunch of days on the road. And yet, Northern Kentucky has become their home away from home for guys from as far away as Palo Alto, Calif., on one coast and Milburn and Middlesex, N.J., on the other.
Like the Big Ten, only playing for a whole lot less TV money. Make that no TV money.
So why do it? Why leave places like San Diego and colonial Williamsburg, Va., to name just a couple more Y’alls hometowns. Why do they do it?
Listen to Craig Massey, the dean of the Y’alls roster, who at 33 is a year older than Y’alls manager Brian White and has been at this pro baseball thing for nine years now, starting with Santa Fe in the Pecos League and spending a season in Australia for Canberra.
“I love it man, I love the game, I love the team aspect of it the way it brings people together like nothing else can,” says Massey, an infielder who calls the small town of Bells, in western Tennessee, home. “And I have a great support system back there.”
He also has two small children, ages 1 ½ and five months. And the perfect job. The Faulkner University grad owns a baseball training facility now and that allows him to pursue his summer baseball dreams. And with Frontier League trips to Evansville and St. Louis, he can get home “at least once a month” during the season.
“He’s awesome, a professional in every way every day,” says Y’alls manager White of how Massey helps him deal with the young players in the clubhouse. And he was heading home Sunday night to with his family Labor Day. His one reaction after a full summer here: “It rains a lot.”
Taylor Bryant is not going home. The former Cal State-Fullerton star turned infield coach comes from Indio, Calif. in the Inland Empire and while he says that “California will always be my home, I’ll start my family here,” with a home in Amelia, Ohio, and a thank you to I-275 for the manageable commute.
Bryant was a big part of the 7-1 win for the Y’alls in Game 1 of Sunday’s doubleheader season finale after Saturday’s game was rained out. In his first at-bat in a year, he crushed a first-inning two-run home run.
Impressions of Greater Cincinnati? “It’s a lot cheaper,” he says, “and the humidity doesn’t change.” None of that dry desert heat here. “It doesn’t really bother me now,” he says.
One thing that didn’t seem to bother the Y’alls fan base despite a drop-off from a best-in-the-league 57-36 regular season record a year ago to 39-56 and seventh place in the West Division this year.
“Our people do a phenomenal job,” White says of the marketing and community involvement efforts. Before the first pitch was thrown Sunday, there were 16 sponsors already mentioned. And there are 37 with outfield signs. And if a foul ball heads back toward the parking lots or lands on the metal roof, in a nanosecond you’ll hear an “If it cracks, call Jacks” plug for Jacks Glass Shop on the video board.
And the fans have responded. Attendance is up nearly 600 a game to 2,124 from 1,555 in 2021 to more than 100,000 overall. Although asking them to stay around for the second — and unscheduled — game of Sunday’s doubleheader (to make up for Saturday’s rain-postponed game) might have been a bit much as the fans mostly – 90 percent anyway — headed home after the Y’alls’ 7-1 win in the opener, destroying the Evansville Otters’ chance to host a wild card playoff game Tuesday.
Game 2 was just for fun. Did it mean anything? “It doesn’t mean much,” the Evansville radio play-by-play guy told his listeners. “For the first and only time this season, the Otters will play a game exclusively for the love of baseball.” he said. They certainly loved the 11-1 romp over a Y’alls team without last year’s pitching.
Y’alls radio guy Anthony Mazzini saw it like this: “Some of these guys want to finish up strong at the end of the season and some of them just want to go home.”
But not before a postgame autograph signing session where the fans who hung around could complete their collections of signed Y’alls baseball cards.
One who was happy to wait and sign was New Jersey’s Brennan Price, the second Y’alls player to reach the 100-hit mark on Friday as he closed with six home runs and 12 RBI the last 11 games. At 6-foot-9 and 300 pounds, the former pitcher in the Toronto Blue Jays system, is coming back as a hitter. And the biggest position player (there are some 6-10 pitchers) in professional baseball.
But when he tells the folks back in New Jersey that he’s playing for the Florence Y’alls, he says they ask him: “You’re playing in Italy? . . . they have no clue where this is,” he says.
“I like it here,” Price, a graduate of Division II Feliciano University in Rutherford, N.J., says. “It’s a slower pace. There’s some serious personality out there (back East).” And that suits him fine.
The way he’s able to play summer ball, Price says, is “you have to work a lot in the offseason.” And he does, working in a baseball facility as a personal trainer, doing clinics and running leagues.
“I kind of lucked out,” he says when Y’alls manager White discovered him in Florida switching over from pitching to hitting.
“He’s an interesting story,” White says of Brennan’s ability at his size to change from pitching and become a disciplined hitter with the athletic ability to not let his size be an issue.
White, a Ft. Worth, Tex., native, plans to head home for a bit after postseason meetings with players and coaches and then return refreshed to get the Y’alls back on track. The job is 12 months now.
“It’s never-ending,” he says. “We have to find a way to get the job done.”
