The Lake County Captains might be a Minor League Baseball team, but they've got major plans when it comes to giving opportunity to young artists.
During the last two seasons, the Guardians’ minor league team hired many current students or recent graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Art to celebrate America's pastime.
When Captains President Alan Miller and his business partner Jon Ryan bought the team in 2023, Miller started the poster series to celebrate the game he loves.
“Posters and artwork make a game an event, and we want every day in Lake County Captains to be an event,” Miller said.
His marketing team reached out to young Northeast Ohio artists, many of whom either attended the Cleveland Institute of Art or were recent graduates.
In 2023, Emily Zhang was a senior at CIA studying illustration when she and some of her classmates received an email from the Captains.
“A few of us, we looked more into the Lake County Captains because we're like, ‘Oh, isn't this the local baseball… like the minor league team?’” Zhang said. “It felt really validating that they chose us to [create] merchandise to be sold in their stores. And they wanted us to table at the games to sell our own art as well. It was really exciting to have the opportunity.”
Each artist got to choose a series of games to spotlight for their poster.
Zhang chose a series between the Captains and the Beloit Sky Carp from Wisconsin because she thought the nickname was clever.
“I really like the name of the Sky Carps,” she said. “Because their mascot was a goose, but their name isn't directly ‘geese,’ so I thought it was a really fun pun.”
She decided to create a battle poster between the team’s two mascots. Having played softball most of her life, Zhang was able to make her own reference poses for the Captain’s batting stance.
“I hear it kind of looks like he's going to hit the goose,” she said with a laugh. “But he's ready! He's ready to battle back.”
This season, Rey Yaniga, a graduating senior studying illustration at CIA, was hired to create a poster, and she picked the series against the Lake Erie Loons from Michigan.
“Loons are really cool to me. I think they're really interesting with their red eyes,” she said. “I thought that would be cool to capture.”
Yaniga is not a sports fan. However, when she researched the two teams Yaniga fell for the teams’ mascots.
“I looked at a lot of pictures of mascots, and they just made me really happy,” Yaniga said. “I did a lot of doodles in my sketchbook of them. And that's where I landed on my idea for this poster.”
Yaniga paired Captains’ mascot Skipper with the Loons’ mascot Lou E. Loon imagining the two going to a game together.
“The loon is looking kind of sad because there's a home run by the Captains and the mascot from the Captains is really excited about it,” she said. “I thought it was just really fun, capturing the essence of what a game is and the fun that comes with it.”
One of the goals of the project is to give the young artists their first crack at a freelance gig.
Both Zhang and Yaniga are grateful for the chance.
“I was really excited to add it to my portfolio because it gave me a chance to be like, 'Oh, I can do some vector art. I can do some poster designs, I can make T-shirts,’” Zhang said. “It gave me a chance to have, not only like different mediums, but also different applied arts that I can also show.”
The playoffs begin this week for the Lake County Captains with at least one home playoff game Thursday night at Classic Auto Group Park in Eastlake against the Dayton Dragons.
While the season is almost over for the Captains, regardless of the team’s finish, Miller said he sees the poster artist series continuing.
“We are here as a resource for artists to be able to expand, and we hope that they come to us,” Miller said. “We'll continue to outreach to them, and we'll build this into something very special.”
