Mapping the path

EASTERN MIDWEST BASEBALL

Beloit Sky Carp

Dad and I head northwest to Beloit, Wisconsin, where we visit the Beloit Art Center and have a look downtown. Then it’s off to ABC Supply Stadium, home of the Beloit Sky Carp, the High-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins. We get a stadium tour, join the TV broadcast, and catch a win for the home team!

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Dad and I dropped off my son Danny at O’Hare airport on Day 5 of our journey, and we started northwest — on the road for real. Thus far, we had traveled through the cities and suburbs of Chicagoland in short stints. The rest of the trip would be more like this: rural highways through farmland and wild spaces, past little towns along the road that are gone before you know it.

Our destination was Beloit, the “Gateway to Wisconsin,” just across the border with Illinois. A town of about 37,000, Beloit is the headquarters of several large businesses involved in manufacturing and related industries — chief among them, ABC Supply Company, a $20-billion corporation that distributes roofing, windows, siding, gutters, and more. ABC Supply also the reason that Minor League Baseball remains in Beloit. More on that later.

We cruised slowly into town — it’s the birthplace of the speedometer, after all — and parked near Beloit’s downtown, which has undergone a steady series of redevelopment projects over the last few decades.

The Beloit Art Center’s chief exhibit at the time was “Midwest Darkness,” featuring works of “dark art” that portray skulls, demons, and otherworldly creatures. “We feel this form of expression through dark art and surrealism shines a positive light through darker images,” the promotional materials stated. The paintings, sculptures, and masks on display were intensely detailed and wrought with raw emotion. There was beauty and appreciation to be found, but fresh off a pleasant drive through sunny fields and farms, it was a bit much.

Everything else in the gallery stood in stark contrast to the darkness, and it was difficult to clear the mind enough to take in the other works. These were mostly cheerful efforts that ran the gamut from interesting to, um, interesting.

I felt the blackbird’s wings sweep across the back of my neck and began to run away from the tree. It shrieked again. I protected my head as I ran in another direction, and the blackbird made a second close pass. I changed course once more, and the bird shrieked in reply. I must have looked like an absolute fool, waving my arms frantically and running in circles, but passers-by didn’t seem to notice and were not deemed the dire threat this protective bird took me to be.

The blackbird did another power dive toward me and this time pecked the top of my head. I was done caring about my photo. I sprinted back to the car and, out of breath, relayed my Hitchcockian tale of avian horror to Dad, who seemed unimpressed.

We made our way down the street to Hatley’s Pub for a couple of sandwiches and beer, keeping tabs on the College World Series on TV. I checked my weather app every 15 minutes or so. Although it was still pretty sunny, things were looking dicey for our night game.

Quint Studer, owner of the Double-A Pensacola Blue Wahoos, was in the process of purchasing the Beloit franchise at this time. But he knew a new stadium had to be part of the deal. After meeting with potential investors, Studer struck an agreement with ABC Supply chair Diane Hendricks — a billionaire living north of Beloit — who committed $20 million toward a new ballpark. Her construction company contributed another $5 million. That plus $5 million investments from Studer and Snappers president Dennis Conerton suddenly made a new ballpark possible.

While COVID-19 closed ballparks around the country in 2020, construction broke ground for ABC Supply Stadium. Just thirteen months later, the new ballpark was up and running, and Beloit had a new baseball brand for the 2022 season: the Beloit Sky Carp.

The Sky Carp are the High-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins, who are also affiliated with the Double-A Blue Wahoos, with players ascending from one Studer-owned franchise to another. The Sky Carp name is slang for geese that don’t migrate during the winter. For Studer, this was the perfect metaphor for an industrial town that was putting money into modernization and redevelopment. The message, he told Baseball by Design podcast host Paul Caputo, was, “This is the type of community that’s so cool that even people that normally leave don’t leave — particularly the young people and their talent.”

Making professional baseball work in Beloit is still a challenge: The Sky Carp averaged just over 1,500 fans per game in 2024, last in the 12-team Midwest League, and the franchise has won just one league title, in 1995. Notable alumni include stars from previous affiliations with the Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, and Oakland A’s, such as Greg Vaughn, Rickie Weeks, and a trio of Matts: Garza, Chapman, and Olson.

When we had stopped for a few photos from outside the ballpark earlier in the day, it had been sunny and just a little cloudy. But it began to rain just as I parked near ABC Supply Stadium an hour before game time. Then it rained harder. We sat in the car for several minutes, hoping it would lighten up. But the skies shifted gears and rained harder still. It’s always thrilling to feel like it’s really coming down and then have Mother Nature kick it up a notch, unleashing sheets of water with awesome force. But each level of escalation brought me increasing dread that we might get rained out.

Fortunately, the rain abated, but we entered the ballpark in a rain delay. The grounds crew had been caught off guard by the intensity of the sudden rainfall and had left the field uncovered. They would need to work their magic over the next hour to get it ready for baseball.

This gave us ample time to check out the team store, “The Beak Boutique,” guided by Merchandise and Community Relations Manager Bob Villarreal. I walked directly to the hat display and plucked out the team’s gorgeous sky-blue cap with the head of a goose poking down underwater — one of the best baseball hats I own.

The shop also featured Beloit’s Copa de la Diversión alternate identity, Paletas de Beloit — a kind of popsicle from Michoacán, Mexico — bopping across bright backgrounds of neon green, deep blue, and banana yellow.

I took a slow stroll around the drying ballpark. The forecast looked good to get the game in.

It was a “Waggin One-Price Wednesday” at ABC Supply Stadium, which meant dogs were welcome to be in attendance with their owners. Each pup looked happy and well-behaved.

Speaking of dogs… The delay also gave us time to eat dinner at an easier pace. On a typical night, I’m scarfing down heart-challenging ballpark food while trying to watch or film the game, while Dad juggles his meal and works to keep mustard stains off his scorebook.

Dad’s concession picks typically explore the sausage level of the food pyramid, and he went with his gut once more, selecting a beer-braised brat that he said was one of the best ballpark food items he’d ever eaten. I loved my pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw. We were set for the game.

The Sky Carp and their opponent for the evening — the Lansing Lugnuts, the High-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics — came into the matchup a few games under .500 through two months of the season.

The first pitch was thrown just a half-hour or so after the scheduled start time. Both starting pitchers seemed to struggle with the delay. Sky Carp starter Emmett Olson — a fourth-round draft pick in 2023 out of the University of Nebraska — loaded the bases in the top of the first on three walks. But the left-hander managed to get out of the jam on a sharp line drive caught by left fielder Jake DeLeo.

His counterpart, Lansing right-hander Jake Garland, also loaded the bases in the bottom half but kept the game scoreless.

I met up with Sky Carp President Zach Brockman, who gave me a guided tour of ABC Supply Stadium, from the batting cages and weight room to the second-level suites and classy bar to the busy broadcast center.

Brockman generously continued the tour around the 360-degree concourse, pointing out unique features of ABC Supply Stadium, including 12 stations scattered around the ballpark aimed at the Sky Carp’s youngest fans.

“Quint’s really into early learning, so we have a Build-a-Brain path that goes all the way around the park with different activities for kids to do,” he said.

Other interesting quirks: The ballpark is built on a floodplain, so it was actually built up, as opposed to most ballpark construction projects that dig down to carve out the field; there is a path in center field that crosses the concourse, so fans occasionally need to pause to let the grounds crew pass; and the Hard Rock Rockin’ Right Field Party Deck adopted its branded sponsorship at the expense of one of the greatest names possible for a Sky Carp party area: Deck Deck Goose.

Brockman described his own migration away from the Midwest early in his career, starting in ticket sales with the Modesto Nuts. After five years, he moved on to front office jobs with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, Tulsa Drillers, and again with the Modesto Nuts before returning to the Midwest to take the role in Beloit in 2022 — a living example of the Sky Carp story, returning to stay in Beloit.

“It’s fantastic,” Brockman told me. “I had honestly made peace with the fact that I’d never work in the Midwest. But when I had this opportunity, it was just perfect. Quint is the best owner in sports.”

I asked Brockman what has kept him working in Minor League Baseball for so many years. “Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s the relationships you can build in Minor League Baseball that you can’t build in big-league baseball,” he quickly replied. “When I got into this business many many years ago, I thought, OK, I’ll start on the business side for a couple of years, and then I’ll go to the baseball side, you know — start doing trades. As soon as I got into knowing the season ticket holders, meeting people, and conversing like this at games, I was hooked. I love the Minor League side. You can build so many community bonds,”

“I’m in the industry I love in the place I want to be,” he said as we parted. “I’ll be here forever as long as Quint will have me.”

In the fourth inning, I took Dad back up to the broadcast booth to spend an inning on the air with broadcaster Josh Flickinger, a former sports reporter for the Beloit Daily News. Josh put us at ease right away, calling every pitch of the game while hearing our stories, transitioning from one task to the other effortlessly.

One member of the Sky Carp team staff I didn’t get a chance to meet was Poopsie the mascot, who didn’t make an appearance on the night. Poopsie, the team notes, is a term of endearment — and an appropriate monicker to anyone who has dealt with goose droppings at a golf course. Poopsie wears goggles on his head to honor Beloit aviation pioneer Bessie Raiche, the first woman to fly an airplane solo in the U.S.

Before we settled back into our seats, Dad and I did a quick interview about our trip with Ethan Wiles, a reporter from WREX TV in nearby Rockford, Illinois. Check it out here!

We hadn’t missed much action on the field. The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the fifth, when the Sky Carp put together two hits and a walk off Lugnuts reliever Dylan Hall to take a 2-0 lead.

The fun between innings included a spirited cheeseburger-ingredient relay race and a condiment race dominated by a bottle of ketchup. Normal Minor League Baseball stuff. (Watch the episode!)

The game coasted along. Lansing put runners aboard in every inning, but Olson and a trio of relievers held them at bay. The Sky Carp were also held scoreless for the final three innings, but they had already done enough. Beloit took the game 2-0.

It had been a huge night for us — outstanding ballpark food, one of the best hats in the region, a ballpark tour with the team president, a broadcast interview, a local news station interview, and a win for the home team.

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