Lansing Lugnuts

Did You Know?

• The Lugnuts' franchise began as the Lafayette Red Sox in 1955, then became the Waterloo Hawks for 36 seasons before moving to Springfield and then Lansing.
• The franchise was an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals as the Waterloo Royals from 1969 through 1976, as the Sultans of Springfield in 1995, and as the Lugnuts from 1996 through 1998.
• The Lugnuts have their own original song which plays immediately after the national anthem for every home game, accompanied by their mascot, Big Lug.
• The franchise attendance record of 538,326 was set during the Lugnuts' inaugural year in 1996.
• In 2026, the Lugnuts announced a new format for the Crosstown Showdown exhibition game with Michigan State University, with the entire game being machine pitched to eliminate pitching injuries.

Alumni

The list includes Jeremy Affeldt, Kevin Appier, Carlos Beltrán, and Juan Brito. Other notable alumni are Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Ryan Goins. Pitchers such as Ryan Dempster, Rich Hill, Carlos Mármol, and Mark Prior also played for the team. Additional alumni include Yan Gomes, Brett Lawrie, Kevin Pillar, Marcus Stroman, Noah Syndergaard, and Rowdy Tellez.

The list also features Anthony Alford, Henderson Álvarez, Danny Barnes, Jon Berti, Ryan Borucki, Miguel Castro, Taylor Cole, David Cooper, Jonathan Davis, Matt Dermody, Danny Farquhar, José Fernández, Graham Godfrey, Kendall Graveman, Adeiny Hechavarria, Drew Hutchison, Casey Janssen, Danny Jansen, Jesse Litsch, Aaron Loup, Trystan Magnuson, Darin Mastroianni, Tim Mayza, Deck McGuire, Brad Mills, Daniel Norris, Roberto Osuna, Tyler Pastornicky, Luis Perez, Dalton Pompey, Carlos Ramírez, Sean Reid-Foley, Jordan Romano, Marc Rzepczynski, Aaron Sanchez, Anthony Sanders, Justin Shafer, Dwight Smith Jr., Travis Snider, Ryan Tepera, Curtis Thigpen, Richard Ureña, Anthony DeSclafani, Jake Fishman, Adam Greenberg, Jake Marisnick, Justin Nicolino, Renyel Pinto, Matt Treanor, Kiko Calero, and Eugenio Vélez.