Courtesy: CSMonitor.com
The baseball season lasts about a month where I live, give or take a few days. It’s March in Fort Myers. The Red Sox and Twins have arrived. It’s Spring Training.
Spring gets my baseball juices flowing again. It brings back memories of seasons long past and places far away—of how and when I became a baseball fan in the first place—watching baseball in the minor leagues.
My story is about Batavia, a small city in Western New York, equidistant from Buffalo and Rochester. Batavia has a Class A team. My friends and I would go to games each summer— about thirty times a season—from junior high through high school. It was cheap, fun entertainment. More than that, it was baseball close up, just like Spring Training. You could hear the ball on a bat, the snap of a fastball on a mitt; watch relievers warm up; and chat with bullpen catchers from time to time. Because you were a regular, every once in a while a player would ask you to shag an errant ball, calling you by name instead of yelling, “Hey, kid!”
Courtesy: Minor League Baseball Parks.com
We have Branch Rickey to thank for the minor leagues. He came up with the idea of a farm system in 1919 while with the Cardinals. Rickey wanted to replenish his major league line-up with players who would prove themselves at lower levels. He knew that fans enjoyed watching barnstorming teams play. So why not give fans a hometown team? To sweeten the pot local teams would affiliate with nearby Big League teams. How could it miss?
It didn’t. It changed the game.
But even Rickey couldn’t have imagined how the concept would evolve. There are hundreds and hundreds of minor league teams around the U.S., all with local roots, and many with unforgettable nicknames: Akron RubberDucks, Jupiter Hammerheads, Greensboro Grasshoppers, and (my favorite), the Savanah Sand Gnats. Each is local. And each is doing for thousands of kids what my team did for me.
Courtesy: Savannah Sand Gnats
My team, called “Clippers” at the start, was established in 1939 as a founding member of The PONY League (Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York). When Ontario dropped out the league became the NY-P, the New York-Pennsylvania League (1957). The change gave way to new franchises: teams like the Niagara Falls Rainbows and Bradford Bees were replaced by the Wellsville Braves and Erie Sailors. Today, the NY-P is more than a two-state league: the Vermont Lake Monsters, among others, makes it so.
My Batavia team has carried multiple nicknames over the years—Clippers, Indians, Pirates, Trojans (t-shirts sold at a premium)—before becoming what it is today, The Muckdogs (“muck”= black, very fertile soil drawn from drained swampland). Major League affiliates have rotated, too: Cardinals, Pirates, Indians, Tigers, Mets, Phillies, and now, Marlins. For years the team was overseen by a local shoe store owner (the stadium carries his name, Dwyer). Today, the franchise is managed by a nearby AAA club.
Courtesy: Batavia Muckdogs
The NY-P plays a short-season, beginning in June-ending in late summer, perfect for school kids. Affordable entertainment, $150 buys an adult season’s pass. It’s intimate baseball, too: about 1000 people (on average) attend each of 40 home games.
Those in the stands watch uneven play: these are entry-level guys—players and coaches alike. It’s pretty much “come and go”—one season here and, then, it’s off to the next place … or be cut. Not many players return for a second go-round.
You forget most names after season’s end because you’ll never hear of them again. Well … most of the time. Steve Roadcap managed the team one year, but so did Tom Trebelhorn, who went on to manage the Brewers and Cubs. While many of the team’s best players never make it to the Majors—slugging Gary Burham comes to mind (he hit .325 in 1997)—some do. Infielder Nick Punto of Twins fame played for Batavia.
Oh, the memories!
There was the time— I was about twelve—when my Uncle Ray asked if I’d like to go to a game. I jumped at the chance. Ray knew a lot about baseball: in earlier years he played semi-pro ball in the Buffalo area.
That night we sat in front-row box seats along the 1st baseline. Ray bought a program, something I never bothered with at other games. I brought my glove hoping to snag a foul fly ball, confident that Ray would handle the line drives.
That night Batavia played the Geneva Redlegs, a Cincinnati farm team. It made things really special because I was a big Cincinnati Reds fan. “Maybe one of these guys will make the Majors,” I said to my uncle.
I’m not sure in what inning it happened. A guy from Geneva had just walked. Nothing special about that … except that he didn’t walk to first base, he raced. Ray and I looked at each other, not knowing what to make of it: we had never seen that before. Then I remembered: I had a program. We turned to the roster page and looked up his name: “Pete Rose” it read.
Courtesy:
We watched Pete closely the rest of the game. No wonder, we thought later, that Whitey Ford dubbed him “Charlie Hustle.”
I followed Rose the rest of the year, but he didn’t stand out in the stats. I thought he was done. Rose hit well over .300 the following year. He was on his way.
It all started in Geneva and passed through Batavia—before my eyes.
I had to go to the stadium to see Pete Rose, but I didn’t have to go anywhere to see Steve Blass, Woody Fryman, and (my favorite) Manuel de Jesus Sanguillén Magan aka Manny Sanguillén, “Sangy” for short. Those guys lived in apartments just down the street from my house. I would recognize them in street clothes, going to and from downtown, walking by my place. Sangy stood out. Always smiling, he had the biggest gap-tooth grin I’d ever seen.
Blass was the first of the three to play for Batavia. He was special. Fryman and Sanguillén came a few years later. They were battery mates—Fryman on the mound, Sangy behind the plate.
What really sticks out, though, is what happened after their time in Batavia. It took a while for Blass to make the Majors. Fryman moved up quickly, but soon was gone—traded to the Phillies. Blass and Sangy, on the other hand, remained Pirates, and they made their way to Pittsburgh—to make history together.
I followed the Pirates closely during those years, seeing the team play in person a few times. But I wasn’t a Pittsburgh fan. My interest was fueled by something else: these guys played minor league ball in my hometown.
I’d listen to games on KDKA Radio. Bob Prince was the voice of the Pirates in those days, a gravelly-voice veteran, who would spice up every game (lazy fly balls were “Cans of Corn”). A showman, Prince introduced “The Green Weenie” to Pittsburgh, a cucumber-shaped thing that Pirates fans would shake during games, presumably to put a spell on visiting teams. Of course there was sub-text: Prince loved to say that thousands of fans were “Shaking their Weenies.” Truth be Told, Bob was challenged by his own. Jim “The Possum” Woods—Prince’s longtime broadcasting partner—loved to tell the story of what happened to Bob during one Spring Training season in Fort Myers. Prince, a known admirer of the opposite sex, had to run like hell one day to flee a jealous husband who fired his gun at Bob during the chase.
Courtesy: Green Weenie
The 1971 Pirates were special. With legendary Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell (“Chicken on the Hill with Will”), Doc Ellis, Bob Moose, Dave Giusti, and many others… the team was loaded. The Pirates beat the Orioles in seven games to win The World Series, a fitting end to a terrific year. Blass was great (15-8) and Sangy hit .319. Stargell had an OPS of 1.026. And Clemente, well, he was his usual, extraordinary self (.341 BA).
It all started in the minors.
The impact of minor league ball continues to this day, and it’s not just about baseball, either. Then-mayor David Hollister (Lansing MI) made minor league baseball—and a new stadium—the centerpiece of his downtown redevelopment plan. It worked. The Class A Lansing Lugnuts draw big crowds and new housing-business developments surround the stadium. The Dayton Dragons (also a Class A team) have helped the city get through tough economic times. Attendance at Fifth Third Field tops Class A ball nationally each year; the stadium (7200 seats) is filled regularly to over 100% capacity; and the team has sold-out nearly 1000 consecutive home games. And Coca-Cola Field sits prominently— in carved-out fashion—in the midst of downtown Buffalo, NY. Seating over 18,000 the AAA Bisons drew over half-a-million fans last year.
In a world that always seems to favor bigger and better, baseball takes a different stance: it shows that minor is major. In baseball, you see, it’s not just about Boston, New York, Chicago, and LA, it’s about Batavia, too.
Where else can you find a Muckdog?
