Could Quincy Become a Midwest League Baseball Town?

A week ago Monday, I scheduled the day off and I took my daughter, son-in-law and grand kids to the Peoria Chiefs baseball game at Dozer Field in downtown Peoria. The crowd was small and announced to be 1200 paid. I not sure there were 600 people there though. Granted, it was sunny and 90 plus degrees out and it was an afternoon game during a workday.

While waiting for the game to start, I read through the game-day material the Chiefs provided me.  It listed the average attendance for the teams in the Midwest League. I noticed Peoria is averaging around 2800 fans a game and the Burlington Bees are averaging over 800 per game this season.

I wondered how these numbers compare to the 2017 Quincy Gems?  So I contacted the Gems who told me that as of June 15^th, they were averaging over 900 people per game and that’s with only one weekend game played. It’s still more than Burlington is drawing for their ball club in the Midwest League.

Quincy has a great baseball history attached to it and the Gems keep adding to it each year. This has all but led me to think, why not a Quincy Gems team in the Midwest League?  Nothing against the Prospect League, which I thoroughly enjoy watching, but would Quincy fans be willing to pay a little more to watch a Class “A” professional team?  Would the business community support it? Would Q.U. Stadium need further upgrading to make it happen?

Those are all questions that would need answers. It would be interesting to see what those answers would be. Just thinking out loud!