Long Fly Ball

2005-08-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's a living, Part 2

2005-08-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

PGE Park

The ninth inning

2005-08-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Boy, it’s hard to know what to make of PGE Park, home of the Portland Beavers (Pacific Coast League, AAA). On the one hand, it is a genuine historic downtown ballpark, dating back to the 1920s.

On the other hand, it was treated to an expensive renovation a few years ago, during which the owners made some odd choices about what to keep old and what to make new. The old stuff includes a manual scoreboard, run by a trio guys roped to the scaffolding for safety and yanking a Willy Wonkaish collection of levers and ropes. You also get the old wooden roof that covers almost every seat and an odd layout that among other things sits the playing field well below ground level. Among others, this benefits anyone who’d rather watch through the fence than buy a ticket, a group that appears to include half the homeless drunks in Portland.

New things include an Astroturf playing surface (Blech!), which cannot really be excused by the stadium doing double duty as a soccer pit. There’s also an ungainly new stack of luxury boxes behind home plate, a design feature that has relegated the ink-stained wretches to more of a press terrace than a real press box.

But all in all, and overlooking the most boring concessions menu I’ve seen at this level (glad I grabbed a fried oyster sandwich on the way to the park,) PGE is a fine place to enjoy a ball game. So why does it have one of the worst attendance records in the PCL? I’d generously estimate that about a fifth of the seats were full Monday, and a good half of them were occupied by Cubs nuts rooting for the visiting Des Moines franchise.

Given the insanely easy access to the stadium by light rail, beautiful weather and the cutest mascot in the minors, I can only think it’s the lack of kiddie fun parks and the like that’s hurting Portland. Pretty much the only thing to do here is watch a ball game, which may be expecting too much of modern attention spans.

And with that, it's time for me to head home and start acting like a grown-up. This trip has been exhilarating, tiring, revealing and just plain fun. I caught 24 games by 22 teams in 16 leagues, and maybe the main lesson I learned is that this is one durned big country we live in. If I did another one, I’d pick one or two regional leagues, fly out and rent a car for a couple of weeks, saving the pointless fatigue of 500-mile driving days.

The other big lesson is that for me, baseball is dessert, not a main course. I got wildly bored and restless in cities where the only point of being there was going to the ballpark. The ideal was a combination of outdoor recreation during the day – biking, kayaking or hiking – and nine innings after dinner. I’m more proud, in fact, of my recreation stats than the baseball ones, particularly that I managed to kayak most of the major rivers in the U.S. My sturdy little inflatable kayak and I ventured out on the Mississippi, Missouri, Columbia and Rio Grande rivers, plus on Great Lake and a couple other mighty big ones.

And so one last piece of advice would be to combine the two if you want to do a baseball trip and concentrate on the Pioneer and Northwest league, which combine some fine baseball parks with some of the nation’s best National Parks.

Lemme know if you give it a try.

2005-07-30T20:01:00.001-07:00

Coming in for a landing...

2005-07-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Memorial Stadium (Boise)

The thing with feathers

2005-07-30T19:59:00.000-07:00

BOISE, Idaho -- I was going to say that the most distinctive thing about Memorial Stadium, home of the Boise Hawks (Northwest League, Single A) is the pricing structure for tickets. Seats along the third base line and behind home plate cost $8. Along first base, it’s $2.

The guy at the ticket booth said it’s because first base gets the late sun, which seemed refreshingly honest compared with the pay-for-shade tactics at some stadiums, but kind of dopey. Hello? There’s this new thing called sunscreen? Might wanna check it out.

After taking my $2 seat (Hey, I prefer first base line, and I’m a sucker for a deal.) I discovered another possible reason for the discount – liberal sprinklings of bird poop from the resident osprey perched on the light pole in line with first base.

Yup, the Hawks have resident birds of prey, which club officials have had the good PR sense not to evict. Watching the big birds circle around their nest added quite of bit of visual intrigue to another typically error-ridden Single A game.
Made me wonder why the Hawks haven’t done more to promote the attraction. I imagine a Raptor Education Night, with concession stand selling some kind of stew or pasta dish labeled Regurgitated Fish Guts and souvenir vendors selling rubber mice on sticks to tempt the birds. And why not add a big sticker to the disclaimer on the back of the ticket, further releasing the club from liability for all wildlife-related incidents. (I got beaned with a rather large chunk of nest during Saturday’s strong winds.)

2005-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

This I believe in--Diz-E Bat Races

2005-07-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

McDermott Field

Famous potatoes

2005-07-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Well, so far, the Frontier League is batting 1.000 for rustic, small-town baseball charm. McDermott Field, home of the Idaho Falls Chukars, is lovely little park that showing its decades of wear, but in a nice way. Set in a quiet residential district a few blocks from the Mormon Temple, the park draws a solid crowd of devoted fans, plus a few guys watching the game from the balcony of their apartment.

(For those who haven’t spent much time in the intermountain West, by the way, the chukar is small gamebird similar to a grouse and widely sought by hunters. Tastes like chicken.)

Among the few quirks at McDermott are an odd layout that includes a few rows of reserved seats perched right on top of the dugout, like an island. Also, it’s apparently near a glider airport, so every few innings you get to watch one make lazy pirouettes over the outfield.
Idaho Falls is apparently in the midst or raising money for a new ballpark. I’d say all they need is a new coat of green paint for the fine little facility they already have.

2005-07-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Kindrick Field

2005-07-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Kindrick Field

Way out West

2005-07-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

HELENA, Montana – Home plate on the range, where the Major League scouts and questionable Venezuelan prospects play and seldom is heard a discouraging word, except from that nut in the bleachers who questions the ump’s every call.

The Helena Brewers (Pioneer League, Class A) delivered one of the most quintessential small-town baseball experiences I’ve had. And we’re talking true small-town, as in dirt roads leading to the ballpark and home runs hitting the Army recruiting station.

The team’s Kindrick Field is a humble and aged wood and corrugated metal shrine, with fewer than a thousand fans on a delightfully cool summer’s eve. With a nice view of the tree-covered hills (and the state capital) and a luminous Big Sky Country sunset to look at, it’d be a fine place to while away the evening if you weren’t fascinated in appraising some fine pitching prospects for Milwaukee.

Besides a lovely setting and blessedly minimal renovation, other reasons to appreciate Kindrick Field include a promotions scheduler with enough cheek to put $2 Microbrew Monday and Church Night on the same night. (Those microbrew choices, by the way, include the regionally famous Pig’s Ass Porter.)

Besides microbrews, concession choices were pretty mundane, but I did enjoy what I expect will be my last bratwurst of my trip. This has prompted me to develop a new theory of American regionalism, with Milwaukee as the center of an oblong zone in which Midwestern/farm/Old Country influence gradually declines and blends into other regional cultures. I expect that the farther west I travel from here, sushi will be more common than brats.

P.S. –These folks are even more obsessive about protection from foul balls than La Crosse. Kindrick Field’s netting even covers the press box.

2005-07-23T20:08:00.001-07:00

It's a living...

2005-07-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Newman Outdoor Field

2005-07-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Newman Outdoor Field

Not at all like the Coen Bros. movie...

2005-07-23T20:03:00.000-07:00

FARGO, North Dakota -- I’m developing a theory about the new face of Minor League baseball: It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter.

Tonight’s nearly sold-out contest between the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks (Northern League, Independent) and the St. Paul Saints is the at least the fourth independent league game I’ve gone to with attendance and crowd spirit way ahead of most of the affiliated teams I’ve seen. Yet this is baseball without what is supposed to be one of the defining attractions of Minor League—the chance to watch young players mature into Major League stars. Realistically, the young guys on these independent teams have almost nil chance of going anywhere bigger, and the older guys are just trying to ride out a few more seasons.

But the fans in places like Fargo and suburban Kansas City eat it up, even though the powers that be have declared that their town is too small, too remote, too close to a Major League franchise or too whatever to have what we’d think of as a real Minor League team.

Give credit to the business sense of the guys running these teams and leagues. Divorced of any training duties, all they have to care about is creating an experience the local folks enjoy. They really know how to cater to kids, and group sales tend to be much bigger at the independent games I’ve seen. (I was seated next to a bachelorette party tonight, which just seemed…wrong. Since when do women celebrate their independence and feminine solidarity by going to a half-assed spectator sporting event and getting woozy on lite beer? That kind of doltishness is supposed to be reserved for men, dammit!)

As for Newman Outdoor Field, home of the Redhawks, not much to say. It’s a pretty average looking 1990s park, situated on the sleepy SUND campus. It’s few remarkable features would, at first glance, have to include the name. What other baseball facility celebrates the fact that it’s located outdoors? Although maybe that’s a worthwhile thing when the closest Major League franchise is the Twins, who continue to sully baseball tradition and the sainted name of Hubert Humphrey with their wretched Metrodome. Turns out Newman is the local billboard company, though, so I was just reading the name wrong.

Also, it seems odd that they evidently had wads to spend on luxury boxes and kiddy funworld stuff, but they still have an old-style scoreboard, with a guy sitting in a lawn chair when he’s not hanging up wooden number placards.

Oh, and this is the first place I’ve been to where they sell pickled eggs at the concession stands.

2005-07-20T19:54:00.001-07:00

Taking a break from his day job portraying Jesus in "South Park"....

2005-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

Copeland Field

What I did on my summer vacation...

2005-07-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Professional baseball has produced a number of organizational variations, from the Minor League system to independent leagues to semi-pro ball. But the Northwoods League doesn’t fit neatly into any of the categories.

The league, which has teams across the upper Midwest, isn’t affiliated with any Major League teams or other existing baseball organizations and solely recruits college players looking to boost their skills and for an alternative to working at Burger King for the summer.

The league is interesting mainly as a business experiment. Without those pesky player salaries, would-be entrepreneurs can bring an experience similar to Minor League ball to cities that normally couldn’t support a team.

And, judging from the Loggers, La Crosse’s squad in the Northwoods League, they’re making a go of it after three years. The stands were at least two-thirds full Wednesday for an ordinary mid-week game, and fans were more enthusiastic than the level of play might merit.

Copeland Park, the team’s home, isn’t much to look at. Think of a newish muni field with a few more tiers of bleachers, a log cabin for a press box and a borrowed Lion’s Club pavilion for concessions. But you get a tree-filtered view of the Mississippi River (which smells kind of funny when it gets really hot) from the upper seats and a better bratwurst than they serve at County Stadium…err, Miller Park.

I’d rate the level of play a notch below the single A ball I’ve seen, but no worse than the Rookie League games I’ve seen. Surprisingly, there was no visible scouting activity in the stands.

2005-07-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Alliant Energy Field

2005-07-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

Alliant Energy Field

Rolling on the river

2005-07-19T20:22:00.000-07:00

CLINTON, Iowa -- One of the benefits of not researching a trip like this to excess is that sometimes you come across a really nice surprise, like Alliant Energy Field, home of the Lumber Kings (Midwest League, single A). I stopped here with no expectations, because it was on the way and Clinton was playing a home game.

But the stadium turns out to be a delightful little relic, built in 1937 through the beneficence of the Works Progress Administration and misleadingly named Riverview Stadium. There’s no view of the Mississippi River a block away, not surprising given that the river was an industrial freight corridor, not a gambling and recreation attraction, when the place was built.

Clinton has done blessedly little in the way of renovation over the last 68 years. The field is hard to figure from the outside, looking more like an Indio dates and fruit stand than a mid-America ballpark. But inside, it’s as close to a classic small-town field as I’ve seen. We’re talking creaky wooden box seats, red, white and blue bunting behind the batter and a big tin awning that offers blessed relief from the late afternoon sun.

The place also has a few endearing quirks, including light poles that look more like recycled farm equipment and a Crisco-laden concession menu with items labeled “fried foods” and “garbage pail.” The team also has an extraordinary zeal for protecting fans from foul balls, broken bats and other items covered by that disclaimer on the back of the ticket. The netting extends all the way to first and third bases, altering the view for all but a handful of seats.

Predictably, Clinton plans to tear down the place as soon as it can and put up a shiny new riverfront complex as soon as it can raise the bucks. With the WPA nothing but a faint, fond memory, that may take some time. “Prosperity” is not the first word that comes to mind during a tour of downtown Clinton.
As for the level of play, I’m trying to formulate a theory as to why the single-A ball I’ve seen in California has never included the degree of defensive ineptitude I’ve seen this week.

2005-07-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Cartoons!!

2005-07-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

Fifth Third Field

Holy Toledo!

2005-07-18T19:02:00.000-07:00

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Blame it on Jamie Farr. The actor’s frequent plugs for his hometown Toledo Mud Hens on TV’s “M*A*S*H*” was the only reminder for most Americans that Minor League baseball even existed during the dark days of the 1970s, and it helped create an enduring mystique for the team.

The Mud Hens (AAA, International League) live up to the legend. The city, which has had professional baseball since the 1890s, is bursting with civic pride for the team. They have one of the finest and region-specific mascots in the Minors. ( I preceded the game with what seemed like a nicely appropriate visit to a nearby swamp/bird sanctuary.)

And the Hens have a swell new home in 3-year-old Fifth Third Field, one of the best examples I’ve seen of a downtown ballpark that blends into the environment. At first it looks like a Disney recreation of Foundry America. But the semi-preserved brick buildings the stadium is built into are the real thing, genuine urban neglect only beginning to turn around in what will need to be a massive redevelopment campaign.
All this, plus a good calzone concession, and cartoons before the game, interspersed with Mr. Farr himself describing grounds for ejection from the stadium. It’s swell enough to make you choke up when opposite sides of the stadium start yelling MUD!!!! HENS!!!! during tight spots.

2005-07-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

Bowman Field

2005-07-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Bowman Field

2005-07-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

Going to church, Milwaukee-style

Go west, young blogger

2005-07-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- Back on the road, after a fine familial break in upstate New York. The stay included a visit to Cooperstown, which seemed pretty bland and stat-focused after the very human experience of the Negro Leagues Museum. Multiple exhibits for Ty Cobb, for example, and not a single hint of his thermonuclear personality. Best exhibit is Jackie Robinson’s resignation letter, which he composed on stationery borrowed from the Chock Full o’ Nuts he was drinking coffee in when he learned he’d been traded.

A few hundred miles downstream on the Susquehanna, I begin the westward trek with a visit to Historic Bowman Field, home of the Crosscutters (single A, New York-Penn League). My general sense is to be wary, just like seaside restaurants, of any facility that includes “historic” in the name.

Bowman Field neither proves nor disproves the theory. It is indeed old, dating to the mid-1920s, but it’s been renovated to a fare-thee-well on the outside. From the seats, it’s more plain and authentic-feeling, but nothing too extraordinary.

More striking was the amazingly inept defensive play by the visiting Vermont Expos, who surprisingly have not changed their name since becoming affiliated with the hot, hot Washington Nationals. Or maybe I’ve just been spoiled by too much AAA ball.

2005-07-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

Aerial view from tower

2005-07-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Rogers Centre and CN Tower

Awfully big place, eh?

2005-07-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

TORONTO -- Another Major League detour for me, and another convertible-roof stadium. It’s hard to get too warm and fuzzy about Rogers Centre (named after the cable company, not the psycho pitcher), maybe because it’s just too darn big. Whoever decided Toronto needed room for more than 60,000 baseball fans at a time was one of the great optimists of our times.

And then there’s the playing surface, as dreary a slab of polyester oleoresin as ever pretended to be grass. It’s amazing hitters ever get extra bases having to run those slick, dirt-free baselines.

Concessions are a pretty grim lot, too—you’ve really got to scour the place to find the two outlets of local color, a Kosher knish-and-latke stand and, separated by respectful distance, another tiny booth selling back bacon on a bun.

My impression of the joint brightened somewhat when they opened the roof, an event they delay until five minutes before the first pitch, perhaps for fear of having to vacuum the outfield again. Once the airplane hangar—oops, I mean stadium—is open to the setting sun, you at least get a nice natural breeze and a fine view of the adjacent CN Tower.

And I have to admit that the hotel embedded into the outfield wall is a pretty wacky touch. Recently voted least likely to host an Exhibitionists Anonymous meeting.

I diverted from my usual root for the home team pattern, by the way, to cheer on the hometown Oakland A’s, who I’m even sweeter on having finished Michael Lewis’ excellent “Moneyball” a few hours before the game.

Also BTW, this will be my last dispatch for a week or so, as I concentrate on family and outdoor pursuits, minus an afternoon off for a visit to Cooperstown.

2005-07-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

C.O. Brown Stadium

In the event five (5) innings are not completed....

2005-07-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. -- Well, tonight was good for a couple of surprises. The first was C.O. Brown Stadium itself. I hadn’t expected much from the home of the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays, a new entry in the single-A Midwest League.

But the ballpark is a nice little chunk of thinly disguised history. Parts of the ballpark date back to the World War I era, and while the owners have made a few upgrades to the exterior (including a ludicrously overdone entryway, a kind of farm league Brandenburg Gate), the inside still looks quite authentic. Lots of wood, and the closest thing to a luxury box is a couple of wooden patio things bolted on to the cheap seats. A very hometown America kind of place to enjoy the Fourth of July.

Minor dings to the team for not bothering to come up with a regionally appropriate name in the birthplace of breakfast cereals. The Snap Crackle Pops? The Toasties?

The other surprise was the game. I’ve occasionally grumbled about Minor League ball turning into a family fun park, with baseball as a side attraction, but I never thought I’d actually see an event where they went ahead with the between-innings contests and after-game fireworks and said the heck with the game itself.

Official reason was water in the outfield. At this level of ball, that should mean the sudden formation of another Great Lake. But apparently the grass being slightly damper than the carpet in my Motel 6 room is enough for these umps to call the game and order a doubleheader for tomorrow.

I decided to skip the two-hour wait for fireworks at the ballpark. Gotta go now and see if it’s dry enough for the main city fireworks show.

2005-07-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

Sausage racing!

2005-07-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Miller Park

What made Milwaukee famous

2005-07-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

MILWAUKEE – And now a detour from the minors for a visit to my boyhood home, the ancestral homeland and the team I always root for. Last time I caught a Brewers game at home, they were still playing in the humble but lovable old shed that was County Stadium.

But the Brewers have a way of making you reconsider your baseball principles. Bud Selig? OK, I guess he isn’t actually the spawn of Satan. Domed stadiums? Well, maybe they do make sense when April games are routinely called on account of blizzards.

And it turns out that 4-year-old Miller Park ain’t too bad when it comes to ballparks with lids. It’s a retractable roof, and when they put the top down on a fine summer night like Friday, it’s just another open-air ballpark but with a monstrosity of an awning. (I’m sure the menacing look I initially perceived in the roof’s giant metallic exoskeleton was solely due to having seen “War of the Worlds” the night before.) Even I have to admit there’s a lot more “Wow!” factor to entering the new park than the old one.

Further on the positive side, the interior spaces maintain a lot of the feel of the old County Stadium. The esteemed Hank Aaron is honored with a nature trail along the river that runs between the parking lot and the stadium. Sausage racing still gets ‘em out of their seats in the sixth inning. And my fears that stadium naming rights were part of a larger nefarious business deal were unfounded—they’ve got dozens of microbrews to choose from.

And yes, they’ve kept Bernie Brewer, the Teutonic mascot who celebrates home runs atop the outfield fence. But instead of a German chalet and a giant beer mug to dive into, Bernie now is encased in a structure that looks more like a prison guard tower. C’mon—the team is named for beer. Surely the kiddies can handle the sight of one more happy German enjoying a frosty one.

On a personal note, after weeks of reflexively rooting for the home team, it feels great to really be caught up in the outcome of a game again. And Friday was a fine one, capped by an amazing Geoff Jenkins catch over the fence and a three-run homer to win the game.

2005-06-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

John O'Donnell Stadium

2005-06-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

John O'Donnell Stadium

Down by the river

2005-06-29T19:45:00.000-07:00

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- Davenport’s John O’Donnell Stadium, home of the Swing of Quad Cities (A, Midwest League), shows up on a lot of roadtrippers’ 10 best lists, and it’s easy to see why. The place is the Minor League equivalent of Pittsburgh or San Francisco, making splendid use of a waterfront setting.

The outfield wall is about 10 yards from the banks of the Mississippi, and almost directly underneath a graceful old bridge. Almost every seat has a nice view of the barges that creep up and down the river, and the first base side gets a fine view of the downtown skyline, such as it is. On a balmy summer evening, with a freight train rumbling on the other side of the stadium, it feels about as gloriously American as you can get. Stockton, you should’ve taken some notes form these folks on how to build a single-A size riverfront stadium. (The location does turn out to be a bit of inconvenience, however, when the Mississippi has one of its increasingly common 100-year floods.)

Besides, you gotta leave a team that has raffles so they can raise money to feed the players on long road trips.

Couple of quirks: It seems odd that they don’t make any promotional hay from home runs hit into the river, an event that seems to happen pretty regularly. And why, oh why, did they change the name from the colorful and regionally distinctive River Bandits to an impossible-to-visualize moniker that supposedly capitalizes on the city’s rich jazz and blues heritage. (Me, neither, and I used to write about music for a living.)

Heroes and psychoes

2005-06-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

KANSAS CITY -- No game tonight, but I did spend an illuminating and inspiring few hours at the Negro League Museum here. Can't think of much to say that Ken Burns hasn't already said a few dozen times, but it is amazing the extent of business folly that went into supporting organized racism in the majors. Think of all those tickets the big league owners let dribble away.

Speaking of racism and old-time baseball, I just finished listening to an audio version of Al Stump's excellent biography of Ty Cobb. Lord, what a nut job. Maybe that should be the new excuse for the steroid pariahs: "At least I didn't almost beat someone to death in a bigoted rage."

Steak and bake (Lord, it's hot here)

2005-06-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

KANSAS CITY -- Another nice thing about independent leagues is that they tend to believe in free parking and free programs. The program for the Kansas City T-Bones, of the independent Northern League, included this intriguing piece of intelligence in a discussion of personnel changes among the rival St. Paul Saints: “Also gone is power-hitting third baseman Lou Lucca, who has played in just two games in the Western Hemisphere this season.” Entire novels have been written with less of a premise…

Community America Ballpark, home of the T-Bones, is another recent-vintage suburban park. It’s set in a developing commercial area on the Kansas side of KC, between a racing track and a Cabela’s. (Which reminds me of one of my new theories of regionalism: You know you’re in Middle America when you hear “bass” frequently used as a verb, as in, “We gonna get us a boat to go bassin’.”

But I liked the T-Bones and their digs, which had a hard-to-define Midwestern charm. Maybe it was the pie-eating contest between innings. Or that their manager is nicknamed “Dirty” Al. I was disappointed, however, that the between innings tunes included nothing by T-Bone Walker or Neil Young’s "T-Bone."

Forgot my camera, so no pictures tonight.

And never mind the previous Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson kvetch. Now Def Leppard is following me...

GMC Stadium

2005-06-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Declaration of independents

2005-06-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

ST. LOUIS (approximately) – Well, there’s really not much to say about GMC Stadium in Sauget, Ill., (pronounced “as close to East St. Louis as someone like you is ever gonna get”), home of the Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League. It’s a pleasant enough 21st century ballpark, set in the middle of beanfields and warehouses, with a nice view of the freeway and some concessionary quirks like real margaritas from a Chevy’s booth. But blindfold me and I’d have a hard time telling it from any other mid-level park built in the last five years.

So instead, seeing as this is the beginning of a string of independent league games for me, I’ll mention some of the nice things about unaffiliated minor league ball.

* The Major League teams don’t control it, so teams can locate on the outskirts of large urban areas with Major League teams that otherwise wouldn’t brook any threat to their turnstiles. With Major League teams increasing turning to spiffy new downtown ballparks, this gives a welcome outlet to folks who live in the ‘burbs.

* You get to watch players on their way down as well their way up, including older guys who may have had a few marginal years in the majors or AAA ball and want to squeeze out one or two more years of playing before they decide what kind of sales job they might be OK at.

* With no purpose but to serve the fans, you’ll often find a stronger community connection among independent teams. Teams that don’t build community ties tend to bounce around a lot. The Frontier League’s Kalamazoo, Mich., team, for instance, went to London, Ontario, and back to Kalamazoo within the space of three years.

One other thing. I’m getting an eerie feeling that I’m being followed. Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson are doing a tour using Minor League parks as venues, and every game I go to, it turns out they’re going to be there in four or five days. I figure they’re due to finally catch up with me around Lansing.

2005-06-24T20:28:00.002-07:00

AutoZone Park

2005-06-24T20:28:00.001-07:00

AutoZone Park

2005-06-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

AutoZone Park

Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks

2005-06-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

MEMPHIS-- Talk about your study in contrasts. While Little Rock looks like it spends a good $20 a year or so on improvements for Ray Winder Field, Memphis appears to have blown a sum roughly equivalent to the North Korean defense budget on its new AutoZone Park, home of the Memphis Redbirds (AAA, Pacific Coast League).

And despite my general skepticism about new ballparks, I gotta admit that you can accomplish a lot with vast sums of money. The park itself is a nice brick and steel structure of size that seems more appropriate to the majors. They did a marvelous job of carving out a chunk of as-yet not totally rehabbed downtown to site the park, achieving nice outfield views of tall and old buildings. There’s even a little Wrigley Field thing going on, with balconies of new apartments overlooking the park attracting their own loyal fans. (We had great fun watching firefighters respond to an out-of-control sprinkler at one apartment.)

No carnival junk to mar the experience, easy to get to via public transit (the funky Main Street folly), and all the drunks never manage to stagger away from Beale Street, so the crowd stay pretty civil. And they’ve got cheerleaders, my first T&A experience in professional baseball.
The Redbirds also put on the most exciting game I’ve experienced this season, racking up more by-a-hair singles in the sixth inning than I’ve ever seen.

2005-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Ray Winder Field

2005-06-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

Ray Winder Field

I saw Arkansas

2005-06-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

LITTLE ROCK--It's not exactly Fenway Park in terms of character, but 72-year-old Ray Winder Field, home of the Arkansas Travelers (AA, Texas League) is one of the older Minor League parks still in use. And it's a charmer, thanks to minimal investment in upgrades.

There's not a speck of air conditioning or anything remotely like a luxury box in the joint. Any relief from the Southern heat has to come from the overhead fans mounnted on the roof. They've got a real organist, who really knows how to rock on "Delta Dawn." And if any Travelers player hits a home run to the Dagwood sandwich sign, it's free lunch meat for everyone!

Of course, the city and Major League baseball consider the place an embarassment (What?! No swimming pool? No faux-brick exterior? No idiotic mascot?) and are busy with plans to build a new park north of Little Rock or renovate the life out of Ray Winder. Sigh...

On a side note, the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock is one inspiring place. Although they seem to be under some impression that Democrats are allowed to be elected to high national office.

2005-06-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

HoHoKam Park

2005-06-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

HoHoKam Park

The Golden rule

2005-06-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

PHOENIX—As semi-promised, I took a couple of hours off from family matters to experience Golden League baseball, courtesy of the Mesa Miners. For those of you who don’t follow such minutiae, the Golden League (motto: Yes, it really is professional baseball) is a new independent league co-owned by game show host Pat Sajak. The league owns each team, which currently adds up to eight, four in California, three in Arizona and one traveling Japanese squad. (?!) All play in in college or spring training parks that otherwise would sit empty through the summer, an arrangement that no doubt makes financial sense for the team but ensures there are way more empty seats than fans.

In the case of the Miners, those empty seats are at HoHoKam Field, spring home of the Cubs. Thursday’s game attracted an audience that, in my newspapering days, I would have kindly described as “several fans.”

HoHoKam Park itself is a drab cinder-block-and-metal affair in a neighborhood whose main distinguishing feature is a tidy little cemetery across the street from the park. It is adjacent to the Mesa Fire Dept. training facility, though, which means you get a nice sunset fountain effect behind left field if they’re practicing ladder work.

Other positive things I can say about the Miners:

* They still do the dizzy bat race, a between-innings contest most other teams seem to have been lawyered away from.

* No annoying scouts to block your view with radar guns.

* They have a player named Cleatus.

By the way, the Golden League means that Arizona now has five levels of professional ball: the Major League Diamondbacks; Fall League, a sort of AAA conditioning program; the AAA Tucson Sidewinders; Golden League, with a level of play I’d rate around single-A; and the rookie Arizona League, the best-kept secret in professional baseball.

Worried of stealing attendance from the Diamondbacks, the powers that be have decreed that the Arizona League be strictly a training program, with no provisions for spectators. They play early in the morning ( to avoid heat prostration) at bare-bones muni fields. Any fans sit on whatever patch of grass they can find. And there’s not a scrap of information regarding who’s playing. I caught a Scottsdale Giants game a few years ago, and I’ll never forget the sight of a coach arguing with a passerby about who got to keep the home run ball the guy’s dog had just chased down.

2005-06-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

Isotopes Park, Albuquerque

2005-06-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Rain, rain, go away.

Get your kicks on Route 66

2005-06-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

ALBUQUERQUE—Things that make Isotopes Park one of Top 5 ballparks I’ve ever visited:

* There’s a strong, palpable spirit of community support behind the team. Saturday’s game was a sell-out, the first time I’ve witnessed that in the minors. I only managed to snag a lawn ticket by waiting while the ticketing crew apparently recalculated average body mass index for its fans and decided they could squeeze a few more bodies in behind the outfield. (The crowd thinned out quite a bit when the lurking thunderstorm you see in the picture kicked into gear in the second inning, with a steady rain just light enough to keep playing. I Charlie Browned it through the middle of the sixth.)

* The community thing goes both ways. When baseball returned to Albuquerque a few years ago, the team owners let fans decide the team’s name. They went for clever combination of local heritage and a cute prank by giving it the same name as the Springfield team in “The Simpsons.” (In one episode, the slumping team threatens to relocate to Albuquerque.) Good thing folks here didn’t take a shine to Springfield’s rivals, the Shellbyvillians.

* It’s named Isotopes Park, not Local Employer Who Paid Us A Lot of Money Park.

* They have a real organist.

* It’s easy to get to via Route 66, which maintains a lot of its neon kitsch appeal.

* The park itself is a lightly refurbished 1960s arena, not a cookie-cutter 1990s park trying to look like it was designed 70 years ago.

About the only negative I can think of is that the park only has one outlet for Mexican food, a glaring inadequacy in New Mexico that led to horrendous lines Saturday. Which makes me smarter than the average bear for having two superb chile rellenos at Monroe’s just before the game.

Liked it so much I’m going back tomorrow, after which I’ll be taking a break from baseball for a week or so as I attend to family matters. Although I may try to sneak in a game by one of the Arizona franchises in Pat Sajak’s new independent Golden League.

2005-06-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Security Service Field, Colo. Springs

Rocky Mountain low

2005-06-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

COLORADO SPRINGS--It's not like Colorado Springs doesn't have some scenery to work with. Rivers, lakes, Pikes Peak and the whole Rocky Mountains in your backyard thing?

So what does the melodiously named Security Service Park here offer for an outfield backdrop? Housing subdivisions. Dozens of ‘em, each with hundred of identical huge house stretching across the landscape as far as you can see. But if you crane your neck from the far end of the bleachers, you can also see a shopping mall.

OK, so I was kind of cranky after hours of dealing with Denver metro traffic, intermitten rain and Colorado Springs sprawl. But I couldn’t find much to like about the home of the Sky Sox (Pacific Coast League), who played the Sacramento Rivercats on cold, drizzly night that at least never erupted into the expected the thunderstorms. The park itself is a bland new concrete bunker, there’s nothing to look at when the game slows down and they don’t even have the correctness to make the mascot a walking sock. (Some doglike critter, instead.)

But on the “if you can’t say something nice” side, they do have a good selection of local brews, including a crisp Belgian white.

2005-06-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

Franklin Covey Field

Marching unto Zion

2005-06-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

SALT LAKE CITY – Now this is more like it. Franklin Covey Field, home of the SLC Stingers (Pacific Coast League, Class AAA), is a fairly plain brick-and-metal two-deck park. But it’s marvelously situated, with the outfield fence framing miles of snow-frosted mountains. It’s also situated in a neighborhood that reminds of Wallace Stegner’s descriptions of his bootlegging father’s final days in “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

Solid ball, something pretty to look at when there’s nothing happening on the field, and cheap to boot. I paid $5 for a third-row seat (to the whitest scalper I’ve ever seen.)

Besides the magnificent scenery, local color means pastrami burgers, which I didn’t have the guts or excess Lipitor to try.
As for Salt Lake City as a whole, I’m reminded of Lawrence’s explanation in “Lawrence of Arabia” for why he likes the desert so much: “It’s very clean there.” The major Mormon buildings of Temple Square are an explosion of the church’s, ummmm, unique aesthetic style, all the white stone nicely counterpointed by the hundreds of aggressively helpful men in black suits. The easy listening/Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio station adds a nicely surreal touch to driving through town, too.

Casey strikes out

2005-06-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

Day 1, in which I perform the remarkable act of having vegetables for lunch at a ballpark.

For sentimental reasons, I chose to start the big trip with a game in Stockton, home of single-A California League Oakland A’s franchise the Ports. Sentimental because Stockton is ag team I’ve always liked, enough to make a pilgrimage or two every season. This is because:

A) They were an affiliate of my beloved Milwaukee Brewers for many years.

B) Stockton has the most solid claim to being the Mudville of “Casey at the Bat,” a historical tie hard to beat in California.

C) It’s easy to get to from San Francisco and there are plenty of kayaking opportunities to make it an overnight trip.

Big news this year is that the Ports have moved into a spanking new ballpark. The old one, Billy Hebert Field, was a lovable little dump set in a city park a few miles from downtown.

The new Banner Island Ballpark, or whatever they’ll call it when they sell naming rights, is on the San Joaquin River and a few blocks from “downtown.” As is the story with so many new ballparks today, building Stockton’s new field was part of an ongoing and, to my eyes, pretty whimsical downtown revitalization campaign. Sad to say, it’s going to take a lot more than this dull little facility to get downtown Stockton jumping.

For starters, city father appears to have way overestimated the scenic appeal of this stretch of the river. Or maybe not, since you can’t actually see the river from any of the seats. The only thing you get a good view of is the adjacent hockey arena and five-story parking garage under construction.

And they've obliterated all references to Mudville and Casey, whose been replaced with a generic new mascot, Splash, meant to represent the remote possibility of someone hitting a ball into the river.

With no view to speak of (please refer to Sacramento for advice on how to site a downtown riverside ballpark) about the only local color at the park is the fried asparagus concession. Tasty stuff, and a darn fine lunch with a little seasoning.

Starbucks is about to kick me out, so I’ll just note that the next stop, baseball-wise, is Salt Lake City.

2005-05-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

2005-05-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Howdy, and welcome to my experiment in vanity publishing. I'll be using these pixels to document a two-month road trip visiting Minor League ballparks around the U.S., something I've wanted to do for a long time and finally can thanks to a confluence of good and bad fortune.

The trip should start the first week in June and gradually wind its way east from California. My hope is to post a few paragraphs and a photo or two from each park I visit, but we'll see how time and WiFi access co-operate.

My hope originally had been to use the trip as fodder for a newspaper sports column, but nobody bit. So to get this started and introduce you to the idea, here's the introductory column I tried to pitch:

Take me out the burgs

You'll see 'em in the programs, Web sites and stadium walkways of every Minor League team with a whiff of marketing sense--a section honoring former players who went on to the Majors.

This, you will be led to believe, is the point of Minor League ball. Tomorrow's stars today! The raw talent of the future! Catch 'em while they'll still sign autographs and act reasonably polite to the media!

Phooey. I've caught hundreds of Minor League games over the last 20 years, and the closest I've come to seeing a future star is a few pitches by Todd Van Poppel, at the start of his long career of hoping from AAA affiliates to Major League teams with sufficiently desperate holes in the bullpen.

Nope, if you want to see the future of baseball, you're better off hanging around hotel lobbies during spring training than making the rounds of farm teams.

So why am I preparing to spend the summer doing precisely the latter?

As you read this, I'll be packing the station wagon with clothes, provisions and game schedules for at least a hundred teams, covering everything from the neon excess of Las Vegas to the tranquil forests of Wausau, Wis. I plan to catch as many games in as many stadiums at as many levels of professionalism as I can over the next three months.

The trip is something I've been dreaming about for years, and now that I've put together the resources to put the workday routine on hold for a few months, I can barely wait to get started. Just looking at the league schedules, stadium descriptions and team histories I've accumulated makes me want to hit the highway now.

Wait too long, and the Idaho Falls Chukars might raise enough community donations to replace their fine old American Legion pit with a shiny new ballpark. I might miss "Faith Night," the Oklahoma Redhawks' pioneering attempt to win souls for Jesus while the body waits in line for brewskis. The Surprise, Ariz., affiliate of Pat Sajak's new Golden Baseball League might actually follow through with fan suggestions to name the team the Desert Penguins.

Judging from the funny looks I'm getting from friends, neighbors and co-workers when I mention stuff like that, I'm beginning to understand the appeal of this journey may not be universal. In fact, the reactions have been more along the lines of, "Why would any moderately sane person blow their one opportunity for a sabbatical doing that?"

I could give you some reasonably convincing hooey about rediscovering the real game behind professional baseball's newly tarnished exterior, learning what makes the red states so...red, the impossibility of finding a decent biscuits-and-gravy breakfast in San Francisco.

But for an honest answer, I'll have to tell you a story from a few years ago.

Unknown to me, it was Developmentally Disabled Adults Appreciation Night at the Stockton Ports, and a large contingent from a local facility was in the stands struggling to make some sense of the activity. I was a few rows ahead of young woman who didn't appear to be tracking the mechanics of the game too well but was enjoying the heck out of the atmosphere.

After three or four innings, it started to dawn on her that this was an environment where not only was it OK to yell in public, that kind of thing was encouraged. She became entranced by the chants of "We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher" and "Gimme a break, Steve!" (Bonus Minor League advantage: You get to heckle the umpire by name!)

It took her a couple of innings to work up the nerve to join in. But around the middle of the sixth, she slowly left her seat, walked to a position just above the dugout, took a deep breath and began assaulting the visiting pitcher with the most piercing, off-key rendition of "Happy birthday to you" anyone had ever heard.

And the kicker was it worked! Rattled the poor slob on the mound so badly that he bobbled his way to a couple of walks before giving up a sloppy run that helped the Ports pad their lead.

That, more or less, is what I'm looking for--the serendipity that sometimes happens when you pack a few hundred people with nothing better to do into the same frail venue as a few dozen men who realize one game more or less isn't going to make or break them, but it'd sure be nice to move up to a team with hot showers. Mix 'em together with equal amounts of love of the game and sheer habit, and every so often you get a bit of magic. If you don't, tomorrow's another night in another city, and aren't those dizzy bat races a hoot.

And did I mention the vague but very real psychological comfort of sticking to cities too small to merit a stop on Jose Canseco's book tour?