The United Shore Professional Baseball League (USPBL) officially opened their season one week ago. The Utica Unicorns faced the Birmingham Bloomfield Beavers at Jimmy John’s Field on Monday, May 30th – the Unicorns defeated the Beavers 5-1 in front of a sold out crowd. (Exact attendance figures have not been posted on their Pointstreak statistics page).

The league, which features three teams, will play all of their games at the newly built Jimmy John’s Field in Utica, Michigan. For more information on the league, a Q&A with their Director of Baseball Ops can be found on our website HERE.

So far, there have been four completed games with another game being suspended due to rain (Saturday June 4th’s game with the Unicorns and Beavers).

The promotions have been in full swing as well:  Star Wars and Super Hero Nights, Meet the Team events and fireworks with much more scheduled for the rest of the season!

Each game can be found live on their Youtube channel. Video replays are also uploaded after games.

Rosters have finally been released as well. The official website has a list of players on each team page; However there is no order (numerically, alphabetically, or position-wise) to their roster list. Pointstreak has the rosters listed in an easier to follow layout, so I will link to those for each team below:

Birmingham Bloomfield Beavers
East Side Diamond Hoppers
Utica Unicorns

Based on the pictures and posts on their Facebook page, opening week has finished with great fanfare and feedback. The competition on the field looks good, and the players and fans both seem to be enjoying themselves.

Hopefully the magic of opening day doesn’t wear off any time soon, especially when the same three teams will be playing in the same stadium all summer long.

If all goes as planned, the next few years will include many expansions with more teams in other areas. According to Crain’s Detriot Business, they hope to have four to six teams playing in 2017, 10 to 12 teams in 2012, and 20 teams in 10 Midwest stadiums by the next decade.

Here’s hoping that this is just the beginning of a very successful independent baseball league!

(All photos courtesy of the USPBL Facebook Page)