The City of Whitefish is getting a professional baseball team. The team will be called the Glacier Grizzlies and will be part of the Mount Rainier Professional Baseball League (MRPBL).

The team will play at Memorial Park in Whitefish.

In a few months league owners hope seats will be filled with fans and the field will be ready for a pro ball game.

Even though the other teams in the league are in Washington and Oregon, the owner of the league thinks Whitefish is a perfect fit.

“I was trying to keep the transportation costs down. But I saw Whitefish and I saw that Whitefish has a nice park, it’s a good baseball community, and it’s the right size. All the teams basically have a city size of around 30,000. It’s big enough to support a team,” said league owner Mike Greene.

The Grizzlies will share Memorial Park with the Glacier Twins American Legion team. Members of the Glacier Twins say they are thrilled to share the field with the pros.

“We will run clinics together and they’ll get out and meet the youngsters, sign autographs and things like that,” said Grizzlies General Manager Bob Lockman.

Whitefish residents say they are excited to attend games and think it will bring in a lot more people to town.

“We’ll have players in here that have their mornings and basically their afternoons free. So I would expect the golf courses, the bowling alleys get a lot of business,” Lockman said.

“There’s a lot of stuff for players to do. I don’t know what hotel we’re going to use yet, but there’s options. There’s a lot of restaurants and it would be a good place for people to visit,” Greene said.

So far 17 of 24 players have been signed. Most of them either played four years in college or were once a part of another pro league.

“We got into this less than a week now, and it’s a lot of work. I know a lot of funds have to be raised, but I think we can make a go of it,” Lockman said.

That leaves nearly five months for the work to get done before the snow clears.

Season tickets are already on sale on the MRPBL website.

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