GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — LMCU Ballpark has consistently been a hot spot for visitors during the summer, and one man has designed something fans can enjoy even from home.
50-year-old Bob Kollar, a video game journalist, has designed the stadium in the video game MLB The Show.
“LMCU is loaded,” Kollar said. “All of the minutia of the stadium is what is amazing. I kept looking at it, and I am like, are you kidding me? How is this not a Triple-A Ballpark?”
He has spent time designing Triple-A Stadiums in a video game format and has started making his way down to the High-A level. Kollars hopes to design every minor league ballpark with LMCU Ballpark as his latest creation.
“What goes into making a ballpark is a lot of reconnaissance if you will,” he said.
Kollars examines the ballpark and its smallest details. This includes from google earth and pictures posted to social media and to making his design as realistic as it can be.
“When you just look at it from a broadcast, you miss a lot of the small little details,” he said.
The stadium's details in the game look amazing. It has the scoreboard in left field and the seats look exactly like they do in person. In just 13 hours, it was done.
Kollars currently resides in Chicago but grew up in Mishawaka, Indiana. He's quite familiar with teams in the Midwest League and has gone to several South Bend Cubs games. While he has never been to LMCU Ballpark himself, he hopes to visit the stadium this summer to watch the Whitecaps play.
“LMCU is a beautiful stadium,” Kollars said. “That's part of the fun of creating some of these stadiums. There are so many unique stadiums out there that many people have never seen or heard of.”
Fans can download LMCU Stadium in MLB The Show by searching Kollar’s name "BlueNGold034" on the game systems XBOX Series X and S, Playstation 4 and 5, as well as the Nintendo Switch. On any of those systems, Whitecaps fans can play as the ‘Caps at LMCU Ballpark.
“It impacts families, and it sounds kinda corny, I get that, but it allows families, and dads, and moms and kids to go play at the ballparks they go visit,” Kollars said. “That's part of their community.”
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