I love minor league baseball. Always have. There is something quintessentially American about it. No, that’s not accurate: there is something about it that makes us believe that we are the way we say we are, the way we as a nation really want deep down, I think, to be.
Minor league ballparks are a thing of beauty. Some of them are more well-appointed than others, with actual assigned seats and concessions that make you don’t think of Bismark’s famous dictum about government1. Almost all of them include the obligatory local advertisements along the outfield wall. Insurance agents, lumber yards, banks, auto dealerships, they’re all there.
But the thing that I really love about minor league baseball is that while for the players it is important – possibly a step to The Show, definitely better than selling appliances for a living – the minor leagues don’t take themselves too seriously. Witness the following trade between the Northern League’s Shaumburg Flyers (that’s Illinois, folks) and the Fullerton Flyers (that’s California) of the Golden Baseball League:
05/01/2006 Schaumburg Assigned the contract of RHP Nigel Thatch (Rookie) to Fullerton of the Golden Baseball League in exchange for 1 pallet (60 cases) of Budweiser beer.
– Source: Northern League Baseball
How can you not love that?
1 “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” – Otto von Bismarck
They must not think much of that poor kid if they were willing to trade him for Budweiser, as it is kind of lowly on the beer food chain.
(Though the sense of humor displayed is something that a lot of the spoiled children in the majors should take note of.)