The ideas are in!
We received 100 submissions from St. Joseph down to Valparaiso and can’t wait to get your feedback! Thank you to everyone who took the time to give us your ideas. Our team took those concepts and amplified them a bit with these renderings. In addition, there is a backstory to accommodate each option.
Let us know your favorite by emailing us at playball@dunecoastbaseball.com
1. The Quillbacks
In the early settlement era of the dune crested land around southern Lake Michigan porcupines were plentiful. They thrived in habitats that provide trees for foraging and denning – making the wooded ravines and forests of Lake Michigan’s sand dunes an excellent natural environment. Native Americans revered porcupines for their resourceful survival in the wilderness and their unique ability to defend themselves without initiating conflict. The animal symbolized humility, playfulness, inner resilience and trust. Furthermore, porcupine quills were a vital natural resource for indigenous craft and artistry.
Known most for using their sharp quills for defense, these docile animals usually choose to avoid confrontation. Their upper body is covered with thick fur and white-tipped guard hairs that conceal several thousand sharp quills. While they do not actually shoot the quills out when provoked, they puff up, shake their bodies, and will actively back up or swing their tails to embed the quills into a predator.
As our local Dune Coast communities were settled in the 1800’s the porcupine gradually moved north along the Lake Michigan shore. Deforestation and a rising population settling along the coast led this solitary mammal to seek a quieter location to inhabit.
In 2027 we have the opportunity to invite the porcupine back into its natural habitat of the southern Lake Michigan coast. Paying homage to both the porcupine’s means of survival and the value of the needles themselves we are prepared to announce that the Dune Coast Quillbacks may represent the region in the Northwoods League in 2027.
2. The Breakers
Ask anyone along the dune coast how a bison learned to surf and you’ll get a different story every time. Here’s the one we believe.
Long before stadium lights ever touched this shoreline, a herd of bison passed through on their way west. One of them stopped at the top of the tallest dune, looked out at Lake Michigan and refused to take another step. The lake was throwing whitecaps that afternoon – big rolling freshwater breakers stacking up like they had somewhere to be. The rest of the herd kept moving. He stayed. Some things you just know.
For years, he was the shoreline’s worst-kept secret. Beachgoers swore they saw a shaggy silhouette pacing the waterline at dawn, studying the swells like a scout studies a lineup. Kids left snacks. Lifeguards left him alone. Everyone called him Breaker, because he never met a wave he didn’t want a piece of.
Then came the day the legend was born. A summer storm rolled in off the big lake and pushed in the kind of surf this coast sees maybe twice a year. A longboard slipped off a rack near the beach house and skidded down the dune toward the water. Breaker didn’t hesitate. He charged down the sand, hit the board at full gallop and paddled straight into the biggest set of the day. What happened next depends on who’s telling it, but every version ends the same way: 2,000 pounds of pure Midwest muscle standing tall on a surfboard, dropping down the face of a Lake Michigan wave like he’d been doing it his whole life.
Nobody surfs the Great Lakes on the first try. That’s the point. Breakers don’t wait for warmer water, calmer wind or a better board. They paddle out.
That’s summer baseball on the dune coast. College kids from all over the country show up in June, move in with host families and play every night in a blur of sunscreen, stadium mustard and walk-off wins. No fear. No hesitation. All heart.
So when you see Breaker carrying his board through the concourse, high-fiving kids and hanging ten off the outfield berm between innings, remember: he’s not just a mascot. He’s proof that the best summers belong to whoever paddles out first.
3. The Lightning
What do you do on those hot summer nights near lake Michigan when the humidity has risen and the air is thick? Hopefully, if you’re like every other young child growing up on the coast lines of the Great Lake Michigan, you grab a glass jar and start your journey catching those little blinking and glowing lights flying all around you just around dusk!
Well folks, now that The Dune Coast Lightning baseball organization has come to town as members of the Northwoods Baseball League,…you don’t have to grab that glass jar and you can stop running around trying to catch those bugs hoping to see a glimpse of those tiny lights sparkling through the night
Now you can come down to the shores of the Dune Coast near New buffalo’s newest Baseball diamond and cheer on your brand new hometown team the Dune Coast Lighting. When they say lightning can’t strike in the same place twice, well they’ve never obviously been to a summer baseball game on the dune coast of Lake Michigan!
The D.C. Lightning will be crackling bats and making lights shine nightly as the boys of summer baseball do there best to capture lightning in a bottle every night with excitement, energy and fan packed fun for the whole family and all those within the community. Bring back those old time youthful memories of catching those night time lights as you cheer your newest team on to victory
4. The Phantoms
Lake Michigan is no stranger to its fair share of shipwrecks. From the early 1800’s ships have seen all sorts of inclement weather and been cast to and fro with their share of bad weather on the Great Lake. One of the most infamous crews was the mighty crew of Captain Whittaker on his faithful schooner the “F J King”.
Captain Whittaker was a well known seaman and had seen swells come and go but nothing like that ill-fated day when his mighty ship hit the shoreline of Lake Michigan near what today is called New Buffalo. Some say this was ill fated, others say his luck had ran out, but if you ask Whittaker he would tell you. His luck had only just begun.
On that eventful day his crew decided they would make the best of their situation and do what they knew best, play one of the oldest game they had learned to play as youth dreaming of the sea. As the years went on other adventurous seaman heard of Captain Whittaker and his crew, and how they had become the best at that early games seamen played and that Whittakers Team could not be beat.
News traveled fast and soon ships were coming by the droves just to get the chance to play Whittaker and his crew in this game they called baseball, with a reward of winner take all, (glory, bragging rights, treasures etc). Years went on and Whittakers crew grew old and passing on – as all seaman do some take that journey to visit Davey jones locker while others go the great beyond in the sky. Some say Whittakers team didn’t follow suit with any of those traditions and they never left, and still to this day they are seen at times sailing out on the Great Lake Michigan searching and looking for that opportunity to play just one more game they came to love.
You might say that this story is just folklore, and others might say its myth and we just made it up, but what we can tell you is that today we honor those amazing seaman and the legends that have been left for us to wonder about… by bringing that crazy game Whittaker and his men loved back to the coast line.
