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The West Michigan Whitecaps are a Class A minor league baseball team, affiliated with the Detroit Tigers, that plays in the Midwest League. Their home games are played in Comstock Park, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids. ==Franchise history== The Midwest League came to the Grand Rapids area in 1994 upon the arrival of the former Madison Muskies. The Whitecaps were brought to West Michigan by local businessmen Lew Chamberlin and Dennis Baxter. The Whitecaps were affiliated with the Oakland Athletics before they joined the Tigers' farm system in 1997. Their home ballpark is Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park. Before the 2002 season it was known as Old Kent Park; the name was changed when the park's title sponsor, Old Kent Bank, was purchased by Fifth Third Bank. Fifth Third also sponsors a ballpark in Dayton, one in Toledo, Ohio, and one in Geneva, Illinois. The team's official mascots are Crash the River Rascal, Roxy the River Rascal and Franky the Swimming Pig. The franchise's attendance record of 547,401 was set in 1996. Several league and team records were set during the 2006 season. The team posted the second best record in franchise history, going 89–48, including going 23–6 in July. Michael Hollimon hit 3 home runs in one game. Cameron Maybin hit 2 grand slams in the season. Michael Hernandez became the first person ever in the history of the Midwest League to hit for the cycle twice. The Whitecaps went on to defeat the Kane County Cougars in four games to win their fourth Midwest League Championship. In 2009, the team drew the attention of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine after a 4-pound, 4,800-calorie hamburger called the Fifth Third Burger was placed on the menu of the team's concession stand. It was so named in part for the ballpark sponsor and part for its 1.6666 (or 5/3) pounds of meat. The Committee requested that the team put a label on the burger indicating that it was a "dietary disaster".〔(Doctors Have Beef With Burger ) ESPN, March 31, 2009〕 To date, more than 100 fans, or about a half of the people who have attempted the challenge, have conquered the burger and earned a commemorative T-shirt. On July 15, 2009, Travel Channel's "Man v. Food" and its host Adam Richman came to Fifth Third Ballpark to attempt to conquer the burger in an episode of the popular show. The episode aired on September 30, 2009, wherein he successfully met the challenge. In 2012, The Whitecaps installed a new scoreboard and high resolution video display screen which was installed by TS Sports out of Dallas, Texas. On January 3, 2014 a fire started in one of the suites. It spread and caused extensive damage, close to one half of the suites and 1st base concourse were destroyed.〔MiLB Whitecaps' ballpark damaged in fire: http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140103&content_id=66298102&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb&sid=milb〕 Management is telling the local press that they intend to be fully ready for business on opening day.〔WZZM Whitecaps: We will play baseball April 8: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/277494/2/Whitecaps-We-will-place-baseball-April-8〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「West Michigan Whitecaps」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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