The newest team in the Frontier League now has a name and a ballpark after Normal City Council approval last night.The newest team in the independent Frontier League now has a name, the Normal CornBelters, and a ballpark after the Normal City Council approval last night.
The CornBelters won out on a name-the-team contest that included the Normal Coal Bears — a proposal that attracted some attraction from the clattering classes at Deadspin (the sports site for people who despise sports, whose users were suspected of fraud in the online voting) but nothing from Stephen Colbert, the target of the proposal. CornBelters is a pretty marketable name, with lots of ballpark and concession tieins. The team’s logo (which you can see here) bears a pretty strong resemblance to the logo used by the Cedar Rapids Kernels, however; our first reaction was that it was a Kernels mark.
The team’s ballpark is one step futher to construction, as the City Council approved the $12-million, 4,000-seat facility last night. The ballpark, designed by Kansas City’s Pendulum Studios, will have a total capacity of 7,000. The unique touch in the ballpark: grass parking done up drive-in style will allow fans to watch ballgames as well as movies projected at the ballpark.
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