6/16/2026

Cape Fear Ghost Crabs (Old North State League) @ Brooks Field (Wilmington, NC)

The new reason why the ONSL is seeing ghosts

26 IN 26 STOP 22

In late summer 2025, the Old North State League announced that they would be expanding by adding a third team in the Cape Fear region (a year after the Shallotte Shallywags and Oak Island Loggerheads debuted). The team held a name the team contest, and in November the winning name was announced: the Cape Fear Fish Sticks. Unfortunately...a month later, they had to rebrand after a copyright dispute (I assume it's with the DubSea Fish Sticks of another league), so after a SECOND name the team contest, the team became the Ghost Crabs (a type of crab that's known for being basically translucent).

Originally, they were to play at a local high school (like the Shallywags), but months before their first season (i.e. THIS season), the team announced that they were moving to the baseball stadium at the University of North Carolina Wilmington - far and away the largest of the ONSL's Wilmington area teams.

UNC Wilmington (or UNCW) was founded as Wilmington College shortly after World War II, and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1969. I didn't know anyone from UNCW's notable alumni list on Wikipedia, but it does include famous basketball coach John Calipari - who played for the basketball team for two seasons before transferring (so does he ACTUALLY count?). As for Brooks Field itself, it has a pretty interesting history: it was opened in 1989, is named after the school's first athletic director (who also served as the baseball team's head coach), and in addition to UNCW's baseball team, hosted two affiliated Minor League Baseball teams (though neither lasted past two seasons).

On some level, it's on the more "basic" side as college baseball stadiums go, as UNC Wilmington is a smaller D-I school; however, it's similar to and yet somehow better than Bainton Field at Rutgers (likely due to UNCW treating baseball a bit more seriously). Conversely, as a college stadium, it's a bit more "built up" than most of the summer league stadiums I've been to, which are either high school and/or community fields (save for the Futures League and it's ex-MiLB-affiliated stadiums); for example, there's a working video board that the team uses (emphasis on the word "working"), which is not something I've seen a ton of around the summer leagues. Heck, there's another summer league team in Wilmington (whom a number of the Ghost Crabs staff worked for in the past), and this stadium blows theirs out of the proverbial water (according to one of the interns - though I do hate to admit that it's true due to the nature of the other team's stadium).

The main grandstand has two seating areas: a club level lower area with folding seats and bar style seating (akin to the seats I sat in for a Rutgers women's basketball game), while the upper area is "fixed" seating. There are bleachers down both base lines, but while the first base line simply has two sets of metal bleachers, the third base line has (going away from the grandstand):

• A "standard" set of metal bleachers
• A bleacher-esque area with rocking chairs instead of benches (and the chairs are not bolted down, so they can be moved around)
• A bar area
• A hill in left field with Adirondack chairs (though said chairs are not well maintained sadly)

Despite being a "new" team, the Ghost Crabs are doing fairly decently this year (see: the Shallotte Shallywags¹). This contest was another interesting one, as the Ghost Crabs were down halfway through the game but took the lead right as I had to head out for the night (it's around an hour drive), and ended up winning via mercy rule (a rule where a team leading by ten runs at the end of an inning instantly wins²).

MERCH

One thing the Ghost Crabs have that I didn't see elsewhere in this ONSL journey: a trailer! Merch is sold out of this trailer, and the team had quite a few items that weren't shirts and hats: yo-yos, Croc jibbitz, keychains, and not Livestrong bracelets. Some of these miscellaneous items could be had for free...if you caught/found a foul ball and returned it to the merch trailer³.

However, in standard "Summer League team player merch being super limited for fans" fashion...player hats were only available in the smallest size (XXS) which only fits infants (but also makes a good desk decoration for a baseball fanatic like...y'know), and like the Shallywags, the team had ONE JERSEY available. It should also be noted that the Ghost Crabs have two different designs for player hats, but only one was available.

Teams in the ONSL have a partner program where local merchants are encouraged to partner with teams to sell merchandise, and there's a batting cage that partners with the team a short drive from the stadium. I checked it out right before the game, but they didn't seem to have Ghost Crabs stuff. Also, this game was a Halloween themed night, and the team had a bunch of plastic skeletons around the stadium - two of them wearing "Cape Fear Fish Sticks" gear.