Back to Baseball
A new team is taking over Kokomo Municipal Stadium this summer. The Kokomo Creek Chubs will play in the Prospect League, bringing the city back into a league it knows well.
Kokomo has been here before. The Kokomo Jackrabbits played in the same league years prior, but then the ballpark sat without a team. Matt Howard, now the Creek Chubs’ general manager, saw a clear assignment in what came next.
“We’ve built programs here before,” Howard says. “This is about doing it again and giving people something they want to come out and support.”
Howard says he has spent most of his life in the game. He played at Slippery Rock University, where he earned Division II All-American honors, then moved through three seasons of independent ball in the Frontier League. He says those years shaped his sense of what a team can mean in a smaller city.
Coaching followed. He came to Kokomo during the Jackrabbits’ first season as an assistant, took over as manager midway through the year, and returned the next season in the role full time. He later joined the staff at Ball State University and then built a program from scratch at Indiana University Kokomo, where he served as the inaugural head coach.
“I’ve kind of been able to build programs here before,” Howard says. “That’s what excited me about this. It’s a chance to do that again in Kokomo and try to create something people are proud of.”
Howard’s path briefly left baseball. He spent five years as a police officer with the Kokomo Police Department, a stretch that kept him tied to the city even as his career shifted. When the Creek Chubs job opened, he saw a way back into the sport that had defined most of his adult life, and a way to reconnect it to the place he now calls home.
“Kokomo embraced me,” he says. “A lot of the people I’ve met here are lifelong friends. They were in my wedding. They’ve become part of my family. This is a community that’s done a lot for me, so having the chance to build something for it again means a lot.”
Right now, Howard’s top priorities are foundational: hire staff, get a mascot ready, and introduce the team to a city that remembers summer baseball but needs a new reason to show up. The Prospect League model relies on college players, and Howard says the roster comes together through relationships built over years in the game, through college programs, summer circuits and local ties.
“We’re tapping into the people we know and the relationships we’ve built,” he says. “You tell players we’ve got a great stadium, a strong league, and a community that cares about baseball. It’s a good opportunity for them to come play in front of fans and get exposure.”
There is less urgency around promotions and more around presence. The team plans to expand its footprint once players arrive, with an emphasis on youth engagement and visibility across Kokomo. It is early, and much of that work will follow the roster.
Howard says success in the first season will be measured by whether the experience feels right for the people who come through the gates.
“Make it affordable. Make it fun,” he says. “When people come out, they should enjoy it. Put a good product on the field that they can cheer for and want to come back and support.”
Howard returns to the idea of the ballpark as a civic space, something closer to a gathering place than a venue.
“This field should be used the way it was designed,” he says. “It should be a place people can come with their families, with friends, even bring a company outing. Just somewhere to go in the summer that feels like Kokomo.”
The 2026 Prospect League schedule is 56 games, starting May 26 and ending with the Prospect League Championship Series during the second week of August.
You can catch a Creek Chubs game at Kokomo Municipal Stadium.
