How a Utah community saves its baseball team from extinction

Ogden • Frank Patrick wears a cowboy hat as he moves around Lindquist Field, raking its dirt diamond as the head groundskeeper and greeting fans in the stands.

During innings, he’ll duck into the press box, where his wife Jamie works the pitch clock. Every 15 to 20 seconds, she clicks a button, a beep sounds in the room and the time is reset for the pitcher on the bump.

“My wife says, ‘If I’m going to spend time with you, I’m going to have to go to the ballpark,’” Frank said.

Frank and Jamie’s son and daughter work at the stadium, too. Mikel helps drag dirt on the infield with Frank while Maranda works concessions, selling hot dogs and soda.

It’s a family affair. But it’s more than that.

“It’s a great community outing to come out and watch baseball,” Frank said. “Most people don’t realize that you can do that anymore.”

And most people — even among the few thousand who show up to root for the Ogden Raptors on summer nights — don’t realize how important community is to keeping baseball alive here.

In 2021, Major League Baseball reduced the number of affiliate teams from 160 to 120, four for each major league club. Ogden, a Rookie League affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2003-2020, was a casualty of the downsizing.

But the Raptors have persisted with continued community support and unpaid volunteers helping throughout the season.

A legacy of community support

Ogden Raptors owner Dave Baggott had every intention of naming his baseball team something else.

It was 1994, and the city had just landed a minor league baseball franchise after the Pocatello Posse — previously the Salt Lake Trappers — moved back to Utah.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Ogden Raptors play the Northern Colorado Owlz at Lindquist Field on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

Ogden Mayor Glenn Mecham had one requirement.

“We will do this, but I insist you name it the Trappers,” Baggott, a former Trappers player himself, remembered Mecham telling him.

That was the plan, until it wasn’t.

“We were going to have a fake name the team contest anyway,” Baggott said. “It was all just for the free publicity, and the Trappers would have easily won.”

Then a 10-year-old girl named Tracy submitted the name “Raptors” into the raffle, one year removed from when the release of the first “Jurassic Park” film.

“Utah is world-renowned for its dinosaur history,” Baggot said. “I thought it was brilliant.

The team would become the Ogden Raptors, and the little girl who helped name the team received lifetime season tickets and a team jacket.

What was supposed to be a “total lark” began a new legacy founded in community support.

Flash forward 31 years, the Odgen Raptors are still the center of baseball in the city of 87,000-plus.

The franchise has persevered through Major League Baseball’s restructuring of its minor league affiliations in 2021. Ogden is now a part of the Pioneer Baseball League, an independent minor league partner of Major League Baseball.

According to Raptors general manager Trever Wilson, Ogden still receives “a financial payment that is made to the Pioneer League,” as a part of the league’s agreement to be an official MLB Partner League.

Those funds, according to Wilson, go directly to run league elements. Teams like the Raptors do not directly see those funds, as they go toward league office salaries, websites and umpires.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Logan Williams runs to first, during a game between the Ogden Raptors and the Northern Colorado Owlz at Lindquist Field on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

But Baggott, who is 65 years old, said the Raptors’ dream is still very alive.

He has no plans of stopping anytime soon.

“The game is baseball, but from my point of view, we’re in the entertainment business,” Baggott said. “If you take in more than you give back to your community, then you’ve lived a life wasted.

“I’ve never forgotten that.”

A band of volunteers

Groundskeeper Frank Patrick and his family are just a few of the many volunteers who help keep the Raptors afloat. Frank said he works 40 hours a week free of charge, while he makes a salary working for a company that does sales and services for law enforcement and fire departments in the Rocky Mountain region.

“Not everybody in the company knows that I do this, but I hit the numbers that I need to so I can be here,” Patrick said.

He and his family aren’t the only ones keeping the show’s lights on.

Richard Armstrong is the director of operations for the Ogden baseball franchise, which means he does a little bit of everything — and all of it pro bono.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Jestin Jones throws a pitch in a Pioneer League game between the Ogden Raptors and the Northern Colorado Owlz at Lindquist Field on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

“From flipping burgers to cleaning bathrooms to grilling to working the video board, being the PA announcer and doing play by play, it’s just giving me an opportunity to do something,” said Armstrong, who is a military veteran who works for the U.S. Department of Defense as his day job.

Both Patrick and Armstrong have their reasons for volunteering.

“I love baseball. I think that’s the biggest thing,” Armstrong said.

Patrick added: “Coming down here, night after night, summer after summer, this is an extended family to me.”

Their contributions have certainly helped keep the Raptors in Ogden.

It’s their way of giving back to the community and keeping Baggott’s 30-year-old dream alive.

“Baseball is the American sport,” Patrick said. “It brings people together. That’s what all of this is about.”

Why do fans keep coming?

Dave McMasters and Mark Borba are regulars at Lindquist Field.

Rain or shine, they’re usually sipping on beers, shouting at the umps and cheering on the Raptors from the same spot near first base.

So — even after MLB cut off its affiliation to Ogden — why do they keep coming to games?

“The one thing I would say is having a team like this in a downtown area where people can walk from work and come to the ballpark — and it’s reasonable and that it’s an entertainment venue — you don’t find in a lot of cities,” McMasters said.

“It’s a good place to watch a game,” Borba added. “It’s a reasonable price for entertainment. So you can bring your kids and introduce them to a professional level of baseball, right?”

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fans brave the heat during an afternoon game between the Ogden Raptors and the Northern Colorado Owlz at Lindquist Field on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

Keeping prices low and smiles wide has been Baggott’s goal.

The Ogden Raptors have led their league in average attendance every season since they moved to Ogden in 1994, according to the team’s owner. The Raptors have drawn 3,407 fans in seats per game this season.

That keeps Baggot going.

“I’m too stupid to do anything else,” he said. “I sell hot dogs for a living.”

He added: “It’s fun to be in front of people. It’s fun to greet people. It’s fun to see people come to the park that you haven’t seen since the final out of the season before. Our fan base is loyal, our community is loyal, and I love the people that work here.”

Fans like Borba and McMasters say they hope the MLB affiliation can one day return. They were disappointed to see it go.

“I really wished the MLB wouldn’t have just walked away,” Borba said. “I’ve got to imagine that the Pioneer League is hurting because, unlike other places, this is a large population.”

Major League Baseball, meanwhile, is considering adding two new expansions teams in the coming years. Salt Lake City is among the candidates.

“I would have never thought that one day Major League Baseball could possibly come to Utah,” Baggott said. “I do think that that’s a really, really strong likelihood that could happen.”

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kids play catch on the berm in right field as the Ogden Raptors play the Northern Colorado Owlz at Lindquist Field on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

With another professional team added to the ranks, the need for minor league affiliates — across all levels — would be a requirement. Baggot said that could be an opportunity for the Raptors to jump at.

“The most common question I get asked is, ‘Will we ever be affiliated again?’ I think that’s a possibility,” the Raptors owner said. “I’d like to think there’s a hope that we could possibly be the Single-A ball affiliate of an expansion team that comes to Salt Lake. I’m putting that out there. My door is open, and we’re ready to go. To be honest with you, at my age, give me a reason to leave and they can have it.”

The Ogden Raptors will continue their sprint forward in the meantime.

“We’ll keep doing it as long as people keep showing up,” Baggott said.

“That’s all we ask.”