After sitting out last season due to covid, the Gateway Grizzlies are back to celebrate their 20th season of Frontier League baseball.
by Cedric Williams
Senior Editor
The Gateway Grizzlies announced Tuesday morning they will play a full 96-game Frontier League schedule this season, beginning with their home opener on May 27 at GCS Credit Union Ballpark is Sauget, IL, against the Florence Y’alls and concluding with a season finale September 12, on the road against the rival Southern Illinois Miners.
The Grizzlies haven’t played since the 2019 season because the 2020 campaign was wiped out due to covid. But with new rules and safety protocols regarding mask-wearing and social distancing, the Gateway club and the entire Frontier League is ready to get back out on the field again.
The 2021 Grizzlies schedule will include 48 home games and 48 road games, with one scheduled doubleheader at home (August 11 against Joliet) and another on the road (June 23 against Southern Illinois). That plan could change though, if any games during the season need to be postponed or moved around due to covid safety issues.
Most of Gateway’s home games will begin at 6:45 p.m. That’s a new start time for the Grizzlies whose home games in the past mostly had a 7:05 p.m. first pitch. This season, Gateway wanted to have a more school night-friendly start time, so the games were moved up 20 minutes.
Other changes for the Grizzlies this season will include new opponents as the Frontier League has expanded to 16 teams after merging with the Can-Am League following the end of the 2019 season and accepting two new expansion teams this past winter.
The 16 teams will be divided into two conferences — the Midwestern Conference and the Can-Am Conference — with each conference featuring two divisions. The Midwestern Conference will have a Central Division and a West Division, and the Can-Am Conference will have an Atlantic Division and a Northeast Division.
The Grizzlies will play in the Midwestern Conference’s West Division this season. The other West Division competitors will be Florence, Southern Illinois, and the Evansville Otters. The teams in the Central Division will be the Joliet Slammers, the Lake Erie Crushers, the Schaumburg Boomers, and the Windy City ThunderBolts.
The seven new teams to join the Frontier League this season will all play in the Can-Am Conference. Those teams include the New Jersey Jackals, the New York Boulders, the Ottawa Titans, the Quebec Capitales, the Sussex County Miners, the Tri-City Valley Cats, and the Trois-Rivieres Aigles. The one remaining Frontier League team that will join the Can-Am Conference is the Washington Wild Things.
“I think it’s good for our industry,” Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee said in a statement to Baseball America, regarding the league’s expansion. “Some other cities have shown some interest in joining a bigger league. It’s had some positive benefits for them and for us.”
Gateway’s schedule will feature nine homestands overall, beginning with the two games May 27 & 28 against Florence. They will then play five homestands in June and July, before the concluding the home campaign with three homestands in August and September.
There will be limited inter-conference play in 2021. In fact, the Grizzlies will face only one Can-Am Conference foe during the regular season. That opponent will be the Quebec Capitales, who will visit GCS Credit Union Ballpark for a three-game set May 8-10.
Gateway’s final homestand of the season will come with nine straight games, August 27-September 5, against Evansville, Schaumburg and Southern Illinois. As always, the Grizzlies will close their home schedule with their Greatest Night in Baseball celebration, which will come on that September 5 date.