Bees Open 2023 Season At Home

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

The Burlington Bees will open the 2023 Prospect League season at home on May 31 against the Quincy Gems.

The Prospect League’s schedule was released Tuesday.

The Bees have back-to-back home games to open the season — they play on June 1 against the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp.

The 2023 schedule will feature 17 teams playing 60 games in 67 days in the college wood-bat league. The league has teams in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

Two new teams will join the league this season — the Jackson (Tenn.) Rockabillys and a team in Marion, Ill., that has not been named. The West Virginia Miners will be dormant this season.

The Bees will play in the Western Conference’s Great River Division again this season. The division includes the Gems, Pistol Shrimp and Clinton LumberKings. The Rockabillys and the Marion team will play in the Western Conference’s Prairie Land Division along with the Alton River Dragons, Cape Catfish and O’Fallon Hoots.

The Normal CornBelters, who were in the same division with the Bees in the last two seasons, move to the Eastern Conference’s Wabash River Division along with the Danville Dans, Terre Haute REX and Springfield Lucky Horseshoes.

Champion City, Chillicothe, Johnstown and Lafayette are in the Ohio Valley Division.

Among the other features of the Bees’ schedule:

• They will play a six-game homestand from June 24-29, with single games against Illinois Valley and Jackson and two games against O’Fallon and Springfield.

• The Bees will have a July 3 home game against Clinton. They will play July 4 at Clinton.

• They will play a seven-games-in-six-days road trip from July 11-16 with the first road trips to Champion City and Johnstown, a single game in Lafayette, and a doubleheader in Normal.

• They play six of their last seven games at home.

Photo: The Burlington Bees celebrate a walk-off win over the Cape Catfish on June 25 last season. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)