Eliot Barrengos is a reporters with the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
BURLINGTON — The line for entry at Centennial Field nearly stretches to Colchester Avenue. More than 30 minutes before first pitch, parking spots have evaporated. The smell of sunscreen lingers, kids buzz with the freedom of their outdoor voices and chatter bleeds into the sounds of the ballpark.
Sweaty and patient, they’re all there to catch the Vermont Lake Monsters.
“Hotdog Hysteria” nights like this, on the first of July, are one of a long list of promotions designed to pull in crowds and keep them coming back, even on nights when the franks are the usual $4. Tonight, they’re just 25 cents, and predictably, the concession line snakes across the park to the bullpen on the other side.
From June to August, if the crowds are any indication, the Lake Monsters have made themselves a must-see event.
Just a few years ago, the future of baseball in Burlington was far from certain. In 2020, Major League Baseball shrunk its minor league circuit, and teams like the Lake Monsters were left on the outside looking in.
Those changes put a long history in peril: Between 1994 and 2020, the Lake Monsters boasted 132 Major League alumni. The team’s park, leased from the University of Vermont in the summer, was built in 1906 and is one of the oldest in the country. Over the course of 119 years, it hosted multiple Hall of Famers as they made their way to the big leagues.
That’s when Chris English stepped to the plate. A native of Montreal, English led the Nos Amours Baseball Club group that purchased the Lake Monsters in March 2021. With no MLB club providing players, the front office needed to find ways to build a roster — and swiftly.
One of English’s first calls was to former general manager C.J. Knudsen.
English called once, then again, Knudsen said, with the former manager rebuffing the idea of rejoining the team.
“Then he called me a third time,” Knudsen said, and the two came to an agreement: Knudsen would come back.
“We had no players,” he said. “It was basically myself, Chris and Morgan Brown, who’s our director of baseball operations, and we were able to rebuild the franchise and rebuild the roster.”
The franchise’s reinvention as part of a summer league for college players began that first summer in 2021.
“We had 67 different players play for us, 11 Vermonters, and somehow we were able to put together an amazing win streak,” Knudsen said.
A championship trophy in the team’s inaugural 2021 season in the Futures Collegiate League followed.
In affiliated minor league baseball, the Major League club has complete control of the coaches and players on the field for its smaller counterpart.
As an amateur team, the Lake Monsters have enjoyed a newfound flexibility to build rosters on the field that represent Vermont while committing more firmly to partnerships with Vermont businesses off the field, Knudsen said.
“I think the fans loved it because the level of baseball is much better than when it was a single-A, short season,” Knudsen said. “The guys are all in college. They’re from all across the country, but there’s also some Vermont identity here.”
Baseball in Vermont has seen declining youth participation. Long winters and competing youth sports have made it harder to engage young ballplayers. Knudsen said he understands that community impact is more central than ever to the franchise’s mission — and that now, with the power to choose their players, the Lake Monsters could help revive the game in the Green Mountain State.
“I think that people can identify when they see a person’s name like Wyatt Cameron last year, or Colby Brouillette, you know. Wyatt Cameron’s from Salisbury, Vermont. Colby Brouillette from Georgia, Vermont … people know their names,” Knudsen said. “It gives the opportunity for boys and girls playing Little League Baseball and youth sports to potentially play for the Vermont Lake Monsters because they literally can see it.”
Since the new ownership came into place, the team has pursued local products for the park: An ice cream stand sources from an Arlington dairy; the franchise formulated its own hot sauce and enlisted a bottler in Barre so fans can take it home.
And this year, for the first time, the ballpark will go by a new name: Delta Dental Park at Centennial Field (a 10-year sponsorship deal, Knudsen said, that will help fund the things fans enjoy).
It has been 20 years since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, five since professional play left Vermont entirely. “We are celebrating our 31st season here,” Knudsen said. “That’s a long time for a sports franchise to be in business and operate.”
The one constant? The crowds lined up outside.
