Know Your Playoff Foe: The Ogden Raptors
Welcome to Know Your Foe, the season series of friendly fast facts to get to know the Ballers’ opponents at Raimondi Park.
Next up: PLAYOFF EDITION UPDATE with our divisional matchup, the Ogden Raptors!
Their Season So Far:
The Raptors finished 52-43 on the season, good for fourth in the league and the final playoff spot. Outfielder Damian Stone (#23) leads the team for average and infielder Connor Bagnieski (#22) in RBI; both are top-ten in the league in those categories. On the mound, lefty Chase Chatman (#17) and righty Nico Saltaformaggio (#12) won eight games, and reliever Nik Cardinal (#55) had 12 saves. Because catcher Chris Sargent, who played 171 games for the Raptors over two seasons and was their single-season home run champ (and despite not playing for two weeks he’s still tied for the league lead in RBI!), was signed by the San Diego Padres organization in late August, the B’s dodge a fearsome threat at the plate. The team went 1-6 immediately after losing Sargent, but rebounded in the final week of the season, taking four of six games, to punch their playoff ticket.
Ogden and Oakland met twice this season. The teams split the Ballers’ first homestand of the year in May, 3-3, and the B’s swept a short three-game series in Ogden in June.
Courtesy the great Guy Sliwinski
Hometown: Ogden, Utah
- Ogden claims to be the oldest European settlement in Utah. Its city population is around 84,000, with a broader Weber County population of 238,000. It averages 65 inches of snow a year and was used for three venues in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
- Nicknames: Junction City, Crossroads of the West, The Big O.
- Ogden’s early history as a train hub made its 25th Street a notorious avenue of vice. Purportedly, master mobster Al Capone said “Two-Bit Street” was “too wild” for him. The street’s reputation has softened over the years with TV series like Everwood and movies such as Drive Me Crazy taking up residence. (No word on whether it was too wild for Melissa Joan Hart.)
- So let’s just call it Mountain Hollywood: Parts of The Sandlot (the iconic pool scene!), Con Air, Yellowstone, and Dumb and Dumber (“Big Gulps, huh?” and the atomic peppers) were filmed in the city and surrounding area.
Mascot: Oggie T. Raptor
- He is a nod to Ogden’s own Dinosaur Park, Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument, and the state’s celebrated Utahraptor, the supposed inspiration for the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
- His jersey numbers have been simply ? and #
- His diet includes, “Hangin' curveballs from opposing pitchers, Raptor Burgers from the Hardball Café and children (He says they taste like chicken!),” which does not entirely convince those of us who saw the Jurassic Park kitchen scene when we were nine years old of Oggie’s prevailing cuteness…
Isaac Fisher @ The Standard-Examiner
Team History:
- The Raptors finished ninth in 2024, but they have a long history of success: they tied a then-Pioneer League record for wins in 2019, and they won it all in 2017 and 2023.
- They were affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers from 1996 to 2002 and the LA Dodgers from 2003 to 2020.
- They play at Lindquist Field, renowned for its view of the Wasatch Mountains. The park is regularly voted one of the most beautiful in professional baseball. (But do they have a Bay Area sunset and a 20-foot-high B? Just saying.)
- They’ve lead the league in attendance for 27 years, minus last season, and they were the champs of seat-filling again this year.
- Prince Fielder, Kenley Jansen, and Corey Seager spent time with the team on their way up. Frank Robinson played for the Ogden Reds, a previous Ogden franchise.
Best Promos:
- The team does “ticket drops” around town where fans can find hidden physical tickets, good for most of the season’s games, under lampposts in parking lots or taped to fire hydrants or secreted away between rocks on popular walking paths (even, perfectly, under some bleachers at a little league baseball diamond).
- The O-Town Beach Club in the stadium is a restaurant and bar open during the games and also on weekends when the team is away. They serve brunch on gamedays! (Beach…not included?)
- Mystery giveaways! Retro hat giveaways (the Ogden Gunners, Dodgers, or Lobsters fit your fancy?) Free food Sundays!
- Not just running the bases—younger fans can play catch on the field with a loved one!
What to Watch For:
- Infielder Cole Jordan (#3)’s adorable and heroic diabetic alert dog Brandy, who travels with the team!
Courtesy the Ogden Raptors
- In a town like Oakland with its own mythic baseball winning streak, look no further for the same kind of magic than the Salt Lake City Trappers, precursors to the Raptors, who in 1987 won a record 29 games in a row, still a record for all levels of American professional baseball. Bill Murray was one of the managing partners and a frequent fan who once brought along Huey Lewis to sing a National Anthem. Raptors current team president Dave Baggott played for the Trappers in the two years leading up to the epic run. The streak is the subject of a new documentary called…The Streak.
Special thanks to Brett Hein, sports editor for the Ogden Standard-Examiner
