• Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days
• A half-pepperoni pie from Lake Monsters Pizza with frosé

When I arrived at Burlington's Centennial Field on a chilly June Sunday, I had no idea who the Vermont Lake Monsters were playing. The crowd was dense with spectators in blue and green, the colors of the state's beloved collegiate summer baseball team.

With apologies to hard-core fans, my love of the ballpark — though deep — is more about conjuring a summery, all-American mood than about, y'know, watching boys hit balls. Good stadium refreshments play a huge role in conjuring said mood. When I was a kid, the promise of a sour pickle was the only thing that got me into my Little League uniform.

Luckily, the minds behind Lake Monsters Pizza share my commitment to amping up the ballpark experience with food and drink.

The stadium operation serves up gleaming, thin-crust Neapolitan pies on paper plates out of a shipping container bedecked in team colors. Its countertop is lined with basil plants, sprouting from repurposed Tomato Magic cans whose contents have become pizza sauce. Swarmed by a line of leg-tugging tots and their chaperones, the stand looks as germane to the concessions section as a hot dog cart.

I ordered two pies to share with two friends, then swung over to the beverage tent for — what else? — Zero Gravity Craft Brewery's Lake Monster Light.

With refreshments secured, I settled into my seat to watch the game. Thanks to the kid sitting next to me for helpfully informing me that the opposing team was the Westfield Starfires of Massachusetts. For several innings, I noshed and sipped, whooped and hollered as the players rounded the bases, feeling as all-American as I ever have. Vibe achieved. Mission accomplished.

The caliber of my pizza, however, was closer to that of a Neapolitan trattoria than of a sports stadium stand next to a Dippin' Dots.

My 12-inch pies — one plain cheese ($12), one half pepperoni/half mushroom ($14) — bore rosy red sauce, a sweet, bright mix of crushed tomatoes and salt. The mozzarella sizzled, melty and mild.

• Abigail Sylvor Greenberg
• Daniel Levitt serving up Lake Monsters Pizza'

Lake Monsters Pizza's not-so-secret weapon is its oven, a high-performance Bistro Twister from Fiero. It's the same brand used at Burlington's Pizzeria Verità and, according to Lake Monsters Pizza manager Daniel Levitt, probably the only one of its kind in a minor-league ballpark.

When Chris English acquired the Lake Monsters in 2021, Levitt was working as a bartender at the Ransom Tavern in South Woodstock, a restaurant and bar with good Neapolitan pies. English approached Levitt and asked if he'd be able to execute the same sort of pizza at Centennial Field.

"I gave him the only appropriate answer, which is, 'No, I can't,'" Levitt recounted.

But English "doesn't love the word no," Levitt added. So the bartender started trying to figure out how to make it work.

Levitt was determined not to "rest on the laurels" of a stadium setting where "people's expectations are low." He devised a plan for making restaurant-quality pizza at the ballpark.

The result is a pie whose structure holds up beneath the bubbly topography of cheese and sauce. Each pizza makes for a great snack to share or an abundant single serving; it is a favorite pregame meal for players, according to a recent Lake Monsters Instagram post.

Levitt is a pizza purist. During the first two years of ballpark pizza, there were only two topping choices. For 2023, he added mushrooms. My ballpark companions maintained that the pepperoni was hands down the best pie, packing a robust smokiness into crisped rounds of meat.

Lake Monsters Pizza is really good. Not just good for stadium fare.

Later, I decided to get a pickle from one of the nearby concession trailers. It seemed only right, for old time's sake.

I was in line when the Lake Monsters won the game; I heard cheers from the stands and felt like a delinquent sports fan. But I wasn't alone. Nearby, about 20 people stood in line for pizza, cheering, too.