Jun 5, 2025 By Chris Dugan 4 min read

The Frontier League expanded this season, adding a pair of franchises in remote locations when compared to the league’s other locales. New to the 18-team league are the Mississippi Mud Monsters, who play in Pearl, Miss., and the Down East Bird Dawgs, located in Kinston, N.C.

Pearl is almost 500 miles from its nearest Frontier League rivals, the Gateway Grizzlies in Sauget, Ill., and the Evansville Otters in Indiana. Kinston’s closest opponent is the New Jersey Jackals, 528 miles away in Paterson, N.J. It’s 533 miles from Kinston to Washington.

The Mud Monsters and Bird Dawgs will be the last two teams to play at EQT Park this season. They will be in Washington consecutive weekends in late August.

Two managers that have made road trips directly from Pearl and Kinston to Washington this year, Joliet’s Mike Pinto and Ottawa’s Bobby Brown, spoke in glowing terms about the potential of the Mud Monsters and Bird Dawgs but also know first-hand about the obstacles each franchise must overcome in their initial seasons in the Frontier League after their cities lost franchises that were affiliated minor-league teams.

“Mississippi has a nice ballpark. It was a Double-A park of the Atlanta Braves,” Pinto pointed out this week. “Their general manager went out of his way to help us. He’s a really good guy, but he has a challenge. He has to build a whole new staff, do branding and teach people, who were used to watching future Atlanta Braves players, what independent baseball is all about.”

The Mud Monsters’ location, and the travel problems it creates for them and their opponents, is a big concern. To cut down on road trips, the league has scheduled Down East for five homestands that will be a six-game series against one team. Mississippi has four such series, including one against Joliet that concluded Sunday.

“It’s a challenge for our league, for sure,” Pinto said.

After playing Mississippi on Sunday, Joliet bused almost 17 hours to Washington and had to play a 10:30 a.m. game Tuesday in Washington.

The series finale between the Wild Things and Slammers was postponed Thursday night because of rain and power failure at EQT Park. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader when Joliet returns to Washington next weekend.

“This road trip, we’ll end up spending 37 hours on a bus,” Pinto pointed out.

Ottawa opened the season by playing in Kinston.

“They have a beautiful ballpark there,” Brown said. “The crowds were good. They have a good owner, a good general manager. I think they are going to be a great addition to the league.”

The Titans broke up what would have been an 18-hour bus trip to Kinston by playing an exhibition game May 7 – two days before the season opener – against the Wild Things at EQT Park. The next morning, Ottawa practiced in Washington before heading to Kinston and opening the season.

“It wasn’t a bad trip because it was nine hours from Ottawa to here,” Brown said when the Titans were in Washington. “Then it was another nine hours to North Carolina, back on the bus for nine hours to here. Then it’s off to Lake Erie for a weekend series before going home.

“Playing nine in a row on the road to start the season isn’t bad. We get the trip to North Carolina out of the way. It’s better to make that trip now than in July.

“We only had eight days of spring training before we had to cut down our roster and head to Washington, so our guys didn’t have much time to get to know one another,” Brown continued. “You can do that on a nine-game road trip.”