The boys of summer have captivated baseball fans for generations with sweet swings, savory hot dogs and a welcome escape during the sweltering months. But what if, for a few weeks of the year in a handful of ballparks across the country, they became the boys under the black lights?
Cosmic Baseball offers an electric new take on America’s pastime that features UV-reflective neon balls and fluorescent jerseys, and is played before screaming fans and children lucky enough to score tickets.
The first half of the game generally looks like a regular matchup, with a few quirks like pitchers in helmets and players running the bases backward. But after a brief intermission, there’s a cosmic “transformation” for a completely new nocturnal game.
“For us, it’s how big of an environment can you create,” said Chris Martin, the creator and co-founder of the league. “And how many memories can you bring when the black lights go on?”
Martin says about 80%-85% of the players who make up the two teams — the Cosmic Chili Peppers and the Glow Mojis — are former professionals who competed in either the minor leagues or abroad and wanted to be a part of something breaking new ground.
With a huge smile, he added, “You’re going to see something and go, ‘This is absolutely insane.’”
Martin founded the Tri-City Chili Peppers a few years ago as part of a summer collegiate league. He told NBC News that one day a lightbulb went off in his head during a glow stick and ’80s night — what if they tried to play the game in the dark?
Martin said he initially was rebuffed by lighting companies tasked with trying to pull it off.
“We met with a group and they said, ‘It doesn’t exist,’” Martin recalls. “You could put 300 black lights out and it’s still probably not going to illuminate, because there’s nothing that’s in existence that’s going to have that much spread play on a field like this.”
Fast-forward six months with some heavy-duty R&D, and the same company called him back to let Martin know they’d cracked the code.
“I got a text message saying, ‘Hey, your black lights are ready,’” Martin said. “I was not expecting that. … I thought [that vision] was over.”
Far from it.
In its second season, Cosmic Baseball has been flooding social media feeds and currently boasts a 300,000- to 400,000-person waitlist.
The Cosmic Chili Peppers and Glow Mojis — selling attractive merchandise and swag that generate long lines at stadiums — play at Shepherd Stadium in Colonial Heights, Virginia, with a seating capacity of about 2,000 people.
But the game’s immense popularity has already led to an expanding summer schedule, with the teams taking their act on the road to larger parks in cities like Nashville, Tennessee; Sugar Land, Texas; and Durham, North Carolina.
Major League Baseball has been backing the initiative, as well, pumping up the exhibition games that could someday be played in a host of minor and even major league parks.
“I think the biggest piece for us is, how do you create a family environment?” said Martin. “And everybody walks up to us at the end of the day and says, ‘This is built for families.’”
