EVERETT, Wash — Minor league baseball is coming back big time post-pandemic.
“The energy of a traditional Rainiers game is finally coming back,” said AJ Garcia, director of Media Relations for the Tacoma Rainiers.
The seats sat empty all of 2020 for the Rainiers and the Everett AquaSox after the season was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.
But fans are slowly but surely making their way back to the stands.
“To have people back here, to have fans, it means everything,” Garcia said.
But the experience like most things in the COVID-era has been different for the minor leagues with limited capacity, masks and social distancing.
But on June 30, 2021, the state is set to fully reopen, and the players are excited.
“It meant a lot, I know, to them and to us to have that, and now is able to really fill this place up and get back to what this place has always been. I don't think anyone here is going to be taking that for granted,” Garcia explained.
So, why the minor leagues? The experience is something you likely won't get at any major league game.
“There really isn't a seat here that isn’t close to the action. It's fun. I mean, the players are sitting right here and you're sitting right here, you're very close, you know, you can see the balls and strikes. You can watch them spit, and you can, you know, hear them yell at the umpires when things go wrong,” Kieran McMahon, Corporate Partnerships manager with the Everett AquaSox.
You might even be watching the next big Major League Baseball superstar.
“Families that have been coming since their kids were very little and now they're, you know, in college or grown-up, they come back and talk about when they got to see King Felix when he was 19,” McMahon said.
Both the Rainiers and AquaSox have limited capacity for the time being but come June 30th, they’re expecting that to change as the state opens.