The minor-league team a town owns to pay for itself

Most minor-league teams exist to make somebody money. The Great Lakes Loons exist to give it away. The team and its downtown Midland ballpark are owned by the Michigan Baseball Foundation, a nonprofit, and the profits from a sold-out summer night — the tickets, the beer, the foul-ball chaos — get handed back out in grants to local youth groups and community projects instead of landing in an owner’s pocket.

The whole thing was the idea of Bill Stavropoulos, then the chairman of Dow Chemical, who in 2005 figured a ballclub could do something good for Dow’s hometown. The foundation relocated a struggling Florida team, built Dow Diamond on land Dow donated downtown, and opened the gates in April 2007. Dow paid for the naming rights, which is why it’s the Diamond and not something blander.

The name “Loons” came from the public — fans sent in suggestions, and the common loon won, that black-and-white northern diver with the wavering call you hear across Michigan lakes at dusk. They landed a good big-league partner, too: the Loons play in the High-A Midwest League as a farm club of the Los Angeles Dodgers, so the kid you watch turn a double play on a Tuesday in Midland might be patrolling Dodger Stadium in a few years. They won their first league title in 2016.

What you feel at a game, though, is the ownership math. Every hot dog is quietly a donation. The foundation hands out grants each year to groups that boost amateur sports, help young people, and prop up the local economy — so a summer evening at Dow Diamond, with the river close by and the loon mascot working the stands, is about as close as pro baseball gets to a town fundraiser with box scores.