6/14/2026

Myrtle Beach Pelicans (Carolina League) @ Pelicans Ballpark (Myrtle Beach, SC)

I FINALLY experience Baseball at the Beach

26 IN 26 STOP 20

As I understand it, Myrtle Beach is one of South Carolina’s most popular tourist spots (with one of the other BIG ones being Hilton Head Island at the other end of the state's coastline). I have no idea what the actual statistics are, but it is one of the most visited sites in South Carolina, and a YouTuber I watched a TON of back in the day is originally from Myrtle Beach. While I’ve personally never spent a night in Myrtle Beach, my extended family has been doing biannual vacations to a small community just across the Carolina border since 2010. In addition, a bunch of my friends made the trip down for July 4th weekend one year, but I had prior plans (in CANADA) - though I heard some WILD things happened on that trip¹.

In 1999, Minor League Baseball joined the list of things to do in Myrtle Beach when the Durham Bulls of Bull Durham fame "moved in" - but not really (the Bulls stayed in Durham, but moved up to Triple-A²). Originally an Atlanta Braves affiliate (and, at the time, the only Minor League affiliate of the Braves NOT named the "Braves"), the team became a Texas Rangers affiliate for a few years (as their owner had a share in the Rangers at that time), then became a Chicago Cubs affiliate in 2015 (whom they are still affiliated with to this day). As far as minor league teams go, they’re honestly kinda successful: they’ve won 4 Carolina League championships and have a smattering of other minor titles.

Their stadium - which has gone through a bevy of names but is currently just "Pelicans Ballpark" - opened with the team’s debut in 1999, and, among other things, was the filming site for an HBO show set in Myrtle Beach (Eastbound and Down). Questions about their future arose post-MiLB realignment due to the stadium’s need for improvements, but in 2025 (right at the deadline when the improvements needed to be made), the team, city (which owns the majority stake in the park), and Horry County (which Myrtle Beach is a part of and owns a minority stake in the park) came to an agreement on the upgrades³. On some level, it's somewhat unremarkable as far as Minor League stadiums go, but there are a few things that make it interesting.

First, similar to a number of stadiums, the seating bowl is split into upper and lower sections, and similar to Heritage Financial Park, the main concourse runs under the seating bowl (as opposed to on top of it like in Trenton and Somerset). However, the main gate is in right field as opposed to behind home plate, and the walkway between the upper and lower seating areas is much wider.

While the concourse does not wrap fully around the field, there are a few outfield sections unlike many of the other parks without full concourses. These sections are in left field (which also features a "beach" area) and are comprised of metal bleachers, as well as sections at the ends of the upper seating area, but these latter sections feature something somewhat unique: roofs on top of the upper rows (useful for when it's super hot and sunny or if it rains - one of which happened this game).

One notable feature connects the Pelicans to their parent club in Chicago: a right field concession stand named the "Clark and Addison Grille" featuring a replica of Wrigley Field's famous marquee (which sits at the corner of Clark and Addison streets in Chicago)⁴. What I found interesting about this area is the fact that it's rather "low" relative to the field, so even though it's the outfield, you can be relatively close to field level.

During many of the family vacations I mentioned earlier, there's usually a trip down to Myrtle Beach for a day to check out various things in the area; for me, one of the places I usually visit is the Pelicans team store (but I’ll talk more about that later). However, I’d never been to a Pelicans game for various reasons - but I felt that with the 26 in 26 challenge, it was finally time to change that.

The thing with 2026, however, was that when I found out what our week was, I looked at the Pelicans schedule and found out they were only going to be home on the FIRST weekend. Since Saturday wouldn’t have worked due to it being our "drive down" day, Sunday ended up being my "winner" (and this drive is a large part of why I went to see the Loco Beach Coconuts in Lakewood on the preceding Thursday as opposed to Friday).

This game marks the first time I've seen Single-A league action, as the three leagues at this level are far from the Northeast where I live: the nearest team to me is on the Delmarva Peninsula, and the other two leagues are in Florida and California. I have heard that since the 2020 shuffle, the level of baseball has (sadly) fallen off (as players who aren't ready for it are forced into action due to a lack of anything "lower"). One other important note: as part of the Minor League restructuring of 2020, the Pelicans (and Carolina League) moved from what was basically "High-A" heading into the change to their current Single-A status. I won’t dive TOO deep into it, but I mention this change as there’s been rumors that Single-A may be eliminated in the near future (the MiLB partnership agreements are set to expire in 2030), so who knows what the future holds.

Those issues aside, this game featured a fair amount of home runs and a 6-5 Pelicans win. After the game, the team raised a white flag with a big blue "W" much like their MLB parent (and even played part of the Cubs' victory song). Also, fans were allowed onto part of the warning track for a postgame fireworks show, which was cool⁵.

MERCH

Like I said, I’ve been to the team store here quite a few times. I'd like to believe that it's actually pretty decently sized, but it became hard to navigate at times when it was full of fans and it's in a part of the concourse where there’s no field views. Their slogan is "cool gear for cool fans", which given that it's the only part of the stadium accessible to all fans that's air conditioned, makes quite a bit of sense (especially on hot and/or humid nights).

The amount of things I collected from those trips is, in all honestly, kinda staggering: a few jerseys, several hats, a t-shirt or two, some baseballs (including official game balls), and even a couple of media guides! Heck, this game featured sales of a program from an exhibition game the Rangers played against Coastal Carolina University here back in 2011 (to celebrate their then-new affiliation).

There is one thing I should note, however: when I bought the jersey back in (I don’t even remember when), I ended up getting a size bigger than I probably should have. Years later, when I wanted to try and "downsize"...I learned that the team had moved from having the script as a sewn-on decoration to having it sublimated. This killed pretty much all interest I might have had in getting a "replacement" at this game (along with the one jersey I was most interested in - the team's road jersey - being unavailable in my size).