On the Road: Frozen in Toledo
The Toledo Mud Hens were the third stop on my June 2018 Midwest ballpark trip. To see all posts from the trip, click HERE. To see all “On the Road” posts, click HERE.
June 16th, 2018: This is the second of what will be four Toledo Mud Hens posts, because my evening with the team cannot be contained within a single missive. Believe me, I tried. (Part One is HERE.)
This post details the most challenging and memorable in-game contest I have ever been a part of: the Culligan Chill Challenge.
Spend the entirety of the third inning in an ice tub, win a prize.
Prior to my visit, Mud Hens director of events and entertainment Mike Keedy asked if I wanted to participate in the Culligan Chill Challenge. I didn’t give it much thought, because thinking would have led me to consider whether or not it was a good idea. I just said yes. “Bring a change of clothes,” replied Mike.
Once the game began, Mike and I headed down to the promo staging area (aka tunnel) so that I could change out of my fashionable business casual baseball writer clothing and into a bathing suit and Culligan’s t-shirt (Culligan’s is a “water treatment products company” based in Illinois).
Our elevator ride down was a bit more congested than I would have liked.
Properly attired, it was then time to proceed to the left field concourse. After the second inning ended, it was bath time.
I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff at Minor League Baseball games, from dugout dancing to fish flinging to bungee battles to pony races to dressing up as all manner of food-based racing mascots. But never had I done anything as challenging as this. As soon as I got in the water I immediately wanted to get out of it, unspecified “prize pack” be damned. But my pride wouldn’t allow me to do such a thing, and after the total body numbness set in it wasn’t all that bad.
Here’s how it went down, from start to finish.
“His legs look almost purple, so this is good.”
In the top of the third inning, the Louisville Bats went down 1–2–3. But the bottom of the frame was a different story, as eight Mud Hens came to the plate en route to scoring three runs. At this point I was kind of enjoying myself, as this bonus in-game interview shows.
Really, I could have spent the whole day in that tub.
My moment of triumph:
As for the prize pack I won, its premier item was a Mud Hens jersey. But the item I like the most is a pen with the Culligan’s logo, as it serves as a reminder that I took on the Chill Challenge and I defeated it.
Walking back through the concourse afterwards, barefoot and dripping, I felt like I was in a dream. Everything seemed distant and hazy, and my teeth were chattering in such an exaggerated fashion that I felt like a cartoon. But it was all worth it. Back down in the tunnel, I happily signed a bench that is filled with the signatures of hundreds (if not thousands) of previous in-game contestants.
Ben’s Biz was here.
After changing back into my fashionable business casual baseball writer attire, it was time to proceed with business as normal. Never mind that, at this point in the evening, nothing felt normal at all.
There is, of course, still more to come from Toledo.
If you enjoy reading about my ballpark travels, then please pay it forward by making a donation to my Vs. Cancer fundraising campaign here:
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