"Swiftie Night" and Corgi races: Minor League promo nights across the Midwest
From Corgi races to conspiracy theories, Minor League baseball teams across the Midwest are turning their games into full-on festivals this summer.
Why it matters: Minor League games are affordable, family-friendly, and this summer, incredibly imaginative.
Sometimes you get a glimpse of future MLB stars — but the real draw is the creative chaos happening off the field.
Here are some of the wildest theme nights coming to Midwest ballparks this summer.
🎮"Toy & Game Night" at the Washington (Pa.) Wild Things on June 15. $15.
Kids get a free Rubik's Cube and get to meet Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach.
🐸 "Zoo & Aquarium Day" at the Columbus Clippers on June 22. $8+.
Visit with animals before the game, and kids run the bases after it.
🐶 "Dog Days of Summer" at the Lansing Lugnuts on June 25. $10+.
Bring your pooch to the ballpark and enjoy Corgi races on the field.
🥒 "Pickle Night" at the Iowa Cubs on June 28. $13+.
The team promises a "briny good time" with treats and a giveaway of pickleball paddles.
🦖 "Jurassic Weekend" at the Indianapolis Indians on June 28-29. $15+.
Check out the animatronic dinos roaming the concourse.
⚽ "Ted Lasso Night" at the Kansas City Monarchs on June 28. $15+.
Come for the baseball, stay for the mustache look-a-like contest.
👽 "Conspiracy Theory Night" at the St. Paul Saints on July 9. $7+.
🎅"Christmas in July" at the Lake County Captains on July 19. $17+.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Jameson Taillon shares hilarious story about Yankees teammate Anthony Rizzo's
Jameson Taillon shares hilarious story about Yankees teammate Anthony Rizzo's originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Former New York Yankees pitcher Taillon has faced much tougher challenges than pitching in big games. Now a Chicago Cubs starter, Taillon battled testicular cancer when he was with the Pirates early in his career. He bonded with former Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo, a Hodgkin's Lymphoma survivor, over that during their time in the Bronx. Advertisement But it wasn't always a somber connection, Taillon admitted, telling a pretty hilarious story on the "Diggin Deep" podcast. Former Yankees pitcher Jameson Taillon in 2022.© Tim Heitman-Imagn Images Taillon recalled a game against the Tampa Bay Rays, somewhere around the eighth inning, when his velocity started to dip and he found himself behind a hitter. That's when Rizzo, spotting his struggling pitcher buddy, stepped in with some classic Rizzo wisdom. 'I think it was like the eighth inning and my velo starts dropping a little bit. I'm like, following behind the guy. Rizz comes out and, like, we had talked about how we both had cancer and stuff,' Taillon said. 'So he comes out, and he's like, 'Hey, I know you only have one nut, but like, I want you to pitch right here. Like you have two let 'em hang out.'' Advertisement Taillon said he was kind of stunned on the mound. "I didn't know how to feel about that," Taillon said, laughing. Rizzo was notorious for his pep talks on the mound with struggling pitchers. In fact, the Los Angeles Dodgers mocked the Yankees for it after the 2024 World Series. Taillon's story, however, gives a glimpse of Rizzo's attempt to keep things light when the pressure was on. It's one reason he was so well-liked by his teammates. Rizzo was a beloved Yankee, and Taillon shows us why. Related: Yankees Should Flip Struggling Closer at the Deadline Related: Giancarlo Stanton's New Comeback Timeline Has Yankees Planning Lineup Changes This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 7, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
I played 'Mario Kart World,' and I believe it can carry the Switch 2 launch on its back
All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. When the Switch 2 made its grand debut in a lengthy Nintendo Direct livestream six weeks ago (so much has happened in those six weeks), a lot of gamers had two major questions concerning the console's impending June 5 launch: Is Mario Kart World really worth $80? Is Mario Kart World enough to justify getting the console on day one? Though Nintendo has tried to answer that first question, many of the fans I know still aren't convinced. However, after getting roughly six hours of relatively unconstrained hands-on time with the game recently, I think I can answer the second one. In short, yes, I absolutely think Mario Kart World has enough meat on the bone to keep Switch 2 early adopters happy until more first-party games like Donkey Kong Bananza start dropping later in the summer. (And if you're looking for more Switch 2 launch titles to play, I have some recommendations.) The iconic kart racing series' first foray into open-world design carries a ton of promise, and after getting to spend a huge chunk of time roaming around its giant world, I think people will find plenty to do for the first few weeks after launch when there may not be a lot of other new games to play. Also, did I mention that I got paid to play Mario Kart World for six hours? The lengthy pre-launch demo event I attended included a pretty comprehensive look at what Mario Kart World has to offer. Let's dive in. The world feels very lively, with lots of NPC traffic and even wildlife. Credit: Nintendo In case you've been living in the jungle or something since early April, you should know that Mario Kart World's big change to the series is the inclusion of a seemingly very large open world that players can roam around at their leisure. Every racetrack is contained within this world, and in the classic Grand Prix mode, you actually have to race other drivers to the next track after you finish one. This flagship Switch 2 launch game didn't take long to make me grin like a child, as I realized early in the demo that you can seamlessly enter free roam from the game's main menu without any kind of loading screen whatsoever. You can actually see Mario idly driving around the world behind the menu, and pressing the Switch 2's plus button removes the UI, places the camera behind him, and sets you off on your adventure instantly. It's a really neat trick. But what matters most is what actually happens once you're in free roam. This isn't necessarily like other open-world racing games such as Burnout Paradise or Forza Horizon where you drive up to an icon on the map to start a series of races, as far as I could tell. Instead, the rhythm of free roaming revolves around simply driving until you see something fun to do. In my experience, this happens about every 30 seconds or so. Starview Peak was my favorite track I saw in the demo. Credit: Nintendo The fun largely involves big blue P-switches that you can drive over to start little bespoke challenge missions. Each one of these takes about 30 seconds at max to complete if you do it right, and they come in a handful of different flavors: collecting blue coins, driving through a series of checkpoints before time comes out, or even completing something akin to a 3D platforming challenge with a kart. If you're coming to this game looking for something more weighty than that, I don't know if you'll find it here; I don't think Mario Kart World is aiming to wrap the player in the mystery of its world the same way The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild did when the first Switch came out. That's fine, though, because what it is aiming to do is give you a lot of fun, bite-sized activities that you can do between intense online races. It's an easygoing, stress-free experience, one that will make for a perfect couch companion while a baseball game is on the TV. Need to kill a couple of hours on a flight? Perfect, just go into free roam and keep hitting blue switches until you can't anymore. I don't know how many of those are in the game, but you get the impression early on that the number is huge. Another important thing to note is that there is more to the free roam mode than just P-switches, as I encountered special collectible coins and even some other things I won't spoil that I couldn't even really explain if I wanted to. In total, I got about 90 minutes with the free roam mode, and it left me wanting to play a lot more. Crucially, it seems like free roaming is something you can simply choose to do if you want to, not something you have to do to have fun with Mario Kart World. All of the traditional modes (as well as new ones like the battle royale-esque Knockout Tour) are here too, and you can access them the same way you always could from a menu. Put simply, this is going to be the perfect podcast game. That's a cool dude, right there. Credit: Nintendo Real quick, I'd like to acknowledge that this isn't just Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with an open world jammed into it. Nintendo has actually made some really meaningful changes to the core mechanics. As you may have seen in various promotional materials, karts can now grind on rails and even ride on walls, both things that are new to the series. Of course, every track and even the non-track parts of the open world have been meticulously constructed with those mechanics in mind, and mastering them will be key to putting yourself in the position to a blue shell ruins everything. What impressed me the most about this is that there's legitimate technique to it. Nintendo has added a new move to every racer's toolkit, where if you hold down the drift button without turning in a particular direction, your racer will charge up a little vertical jump. This jump is how you get onto rails and walls in the first place, and I was told you can also use it to avoid certain obstacles and even shells coming your way. What makes this work so well is that it takes a few seconds to prime the jump, so you can't just decide on a whim that you'd like to ride the wall next to you. You need to learn each track and plan ahead, and this is something that I think free roaming will also help with, since you can drive freely on each track without worrying about other racers. To wrap back around to my original point, I'm no longer worried about whether or not I'll be satisfied with Mario Kart World as the Switch 2's only big first-party launch game. For starters, there are other games to play, contrary to what some people might say online. Beyond that, I got the distinct impression that there's a ton to see and do in Mario Kart World, and all of it can be seen and done at as leisurely a pace as you would like. There aren't even a bunch of overwhelming icons on the world map, if that helps. Of course, to enjoy all this, you have to complete a very important challenge first: Actually securing a Switch 2 preorder. Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo 'Mario Kart World' $79.99 at Target Pre-order Here
Forbes
a day ago
- Forbes
‘Mario Kart World' Review: Amazing, Enormous And Overwhelming
'Mario Kart World' is a huge game. It's no secret that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was a massive seller on the original Switch, but Mario Kart World could be on a whole other level. To get the numbers out of the way, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch has sold 68.2 million units, which is more than double what Zelda: Breath of the Wild managed, and we all know how that game helped launch the first Switch. So, on paper at least, Mario Kart World seems like a corporate no-brainer: make the game massive and open-world, and wait for the tidal wave of endless sales. Thankfully, Mario Kart World isn't as brain-dead and overly corporate as the above sounds. A lot of very careful and creative work has gone into this enormous game, and it certainly does show. You have an enormous roster of playable characters and vehicles. If you're coming off the back of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and need your regular Mario Kart fix, Mario Kart World has got you covered. The standard Grand Prix mode is present and correct. You have four tracks per cup with varying speed difficulties. Some of the tracks are more point-to-point affairs, as they are using parts of the open world, but it's all clearly messaged, and you can plough through the various cups just fine. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder One point to mention here is the final Rainbow Road circuit. While most of Mario Kart World looks nice enough, the new Rainbow Road is genuinely astonishing to behold (shown below). The core gameplay has also been reworked and has had its functionality expanded. The number of new 'tricks' you can do along with the traditional boost slide is quite numerous. It almost feels like a skateboarding game at times, as you chain tricks together to get multiple boosts. There are a lot of new "tricks" added to 'Mario Kart World'. The other follow-up from the open world is that, in addition to the Grand Prix mode, you also have a new Knockout Tour mode. This is more akin to a marathon, with multiple tracks and areas stitched together over a really long Outrun-esque race (albeit minus the branching). This new Knockout Mode really helps you to grasp the size of this game, and that brings me to Free Roam. Free Roam is the big new thing for Mario Kart World. You can explore an enormous continent, finding secrets and missions all over the place. It does feel a bit odd initially, as Mario Kart has prided itself on really well-honed and focused track design, but this new open world setup does work. However, I really feel that the open world aspect of Mario Kart World is enhanced by playing with friends. Nintendo has combined the party game element of other games they make with an exploratory driving experience, and it's really quite unlike anything else. This brings me to the credits and the game's increased price tag. 'Mario Kart World' can feel like a skateboarding game at times, what with all the new tricks. Having played Mario Kart World a fair bit and watched the nearly endless credits, it's obvious that this is a massive game, both in terms of content and the backend development that made it possible. With all that in mind, I feel the price tag is justified in this instance, as this will be a console-defining game for years to come for the Switch 2. I've also covered in previous articles that this price increase in games is actually coming from publishers trying to make their money back after all the major AAA games they released tanked, which is also the cause of all the layoffs. That aside, the other online modes are great and, at least from my playthroughs, very stable. Admittedly, I am in Japan, and the internet connection speeds here are extremely high, so obviously bear that in mind. Overall, Mario Kart World is a huge undertaking, but it still offers the classic Mario Kart progression we've all grown up with. Whether this will sell as much as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains to be seen, but from the off, Mario Kart World definitely has an enormous amount of content to wrap your head around, and the multiplayer will likely keep it an evergreen release for years to come, much like the other games in the series have been. Mario Kart World Platform: Nintendo Switch 2 Developer: Nintendo EPD Publisher: Nintendo Released: 5th June 2025 Price: $79.99 Score: 9/10 Disclosure: Nintendo sent me a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
