“I loved that they started doing this,” Holbrook said of the annual Crosstown Showdown between the Spartans and Lugnuts. “I get to watch my Spartans and the team I adopted as mine a few years back.”

The Crosstown Showdown, as it’s been called since its inception in 2007, has become a Lansing-area staple sports event since the Lugnuts won the first game, 4-3. The 2008 game set an attendance record at what was then called Oldsmobile Park with 12,862 fans, only to have that record broken at the 2009 game when 12,992 fans came to watch.

The Lugnuts beat MSU on Monday, 5-4.

Although Monday’s crowd of 6,772 was smaller than the previous two years, Holbrook said the Showdown still is a fun and unique event.

“I think a lot of people like it because it truly is about having fun,” Holbrook said. “It doesn’t count on either team’s records, and people cheer for both teams.”

Holbrook said he has been bringing his 12-year-old son Tyler to Lugnuts games since he’s been able to throw a baseball, and the Crosstown Showdown is always a favorite of theirs.

In addition to teaching Tyler the game of baseball, Holbrook said he also is trying to make sure his son is a future Spartan, and he thinks taking him to this game each year is helping the cause.

Judging by Tyler’s opinion of this game compared to just another game on the Lugnuts’ schedule, it appears his father is right, and the strategy is working.

“I like the other games, too,” Tyler Holbrook said. “This one is the best because I get to watch Michigan State.”

The uniqueness of having a college baseball team play against the local minor league team adds to not only Lugnuts fans’ interest, but also MSU students. Plenty of green and white clad fans could be seen in the crowd, and a number of MSU student groups were at the game, including the Pi Beta Phi sorority for its date party.

“The fact that it’s a baseball game with Michigan State vs. Lansing, it kind of brings the two groups together,” said communication sophomore Lauren Hansard, a Pi Beta Phi member.

Hansard’s date Monday, criminal justice junior David McMillan, said he probably would have come to the game even if he wasn’t going to the party. He said the opportunity to see MSU play somewhere other than on campus at McLane Baseball Stadium is exciting, adding how easy it for any student to get on the No. 1 CATA bus to go to the game in Lansing.

Hansard and McMillan both said the game would gain even more popularity if more students knew it was happening.

“You would find people from the dorms and the younger freshmen and sophomores coming out because it’s easy to get here,” McMillan said.

In April 2009, MSU and the Lugnuts signed a contract extending the series through the 2012 season. So with at least two more games to be played between the two teams, Holbrook said he looks forward to attending future Crosstown Showdowns with his son.

“We’ll keep coming back as long as they have it,” Holbrook said. “Hopefully that means we get to see a lot more of these.”