If you happen to be in Birmingham, Alabama today, here’s a cool way to spend your afternoon.
Rickwood Field, which turns 106 years old this season, is currently America’s oldest professional baseball stadium. After the Barons, now a Chicago White Sox AA affiliate, moved out of the stadium in 1987, it seemed the park was on the verge of being torn down. However, in 1991, a group of young professionals joined forces to restore the ballpark, and then opened it to the public.
And today, the 21st annual Rickwood Classic will be played between the Birmingham Barons and the Chattanooga Lookouts. The event will honor Rickwood Field Hall of Fame alumni, including Rollie Fingers, who pitched for the Birmingham A’s in 1967 and 1968. The first pitch is scheduled for 12:30 p.m.
The longest game in the history of professional baseball took place in 1981 between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League. The game lasted 33 innings and went on for a total of 8 hours and 25 minutes. Played at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the first 32 innings of the contest were played April 18th and 19th. The final inning of the game was played on June 23, 1981. Pawtucket won the game, 3–2.
A pair of future Hall of Famers took part in this marathon competition. Cal Ripken, Jr. batted 2–for–13 while playing third base for Rochester. (The following year, Ripken would be named Rookie of the Year in the American League.) Meanwhile, Wade Boggs played third base for Pawtucket, going 4–for–12 with a double and an RBI.
I came across this map, but to be honest, I have no idea who created it nor who posted it. I’m trying to figure out what the creator intended in making this map, because while it seems to divide the states up by their likely regional loyalties, many states have Minor League team logos showing when it does not house a Major League team.
The thing that stands most prominent, in my opinion, is that several states have no team logos on them at all. Rather, they remain pictured white and empty, as if the residents of that state had never been exposed to the concept of baseball. Never mind that Kansas plays host to the Wichita Wingnuts and the Kansas City T-Bones, or that Delaware is home to the Wilmington Blue Rocks. South Dakota has the Sioux Falls Canaries. I could go on, but if I were to attempt an exhaustive list, I would inevitably miss a team or two, so I will stop here and hope that makes the point that these supposedly empty states seem to have been unfairly treated on this map.
It’s possible that this map was merely some fan’s side project and that I am being unjustly critical. Still, the fact that there is a noticeable blank space right in the middle of the country does make that area appear devoid, neglected, or ignorant. It also appears that all of Canada has been designated to the Blue Jays, not just Ontario. It ignores all the Minor League teams that various parts of the country feature.
When I first saw the title to this song, I immediately thought of Crash Davis in Bull Durham. The melody and the lyrics are all pretty depressing, but I suppose Crash’s situation as a whole is pretty depressing too. Had this song existed twenty years earlier, I have no doubt it would have been included in the Bull Durham soundtrack.
Best known for his unconventional name, Ten Million was a minor league baseball player who played for several teams in the Northwestern League prior to World War I. Born on October 14, 1889 in Mount Vernon, Washington, Million’s paternal grandmother wanted her grandson to have a name that stood out. Suffices to say that she succeeded. Million attended Broadway High School, where he graduated in 1908, then went on to attend the University of Washington. While at UW, Million was captain of the baseball team.
Million, an outfielder, played for the Victoria Bees in the Cleveland Naps (now the Indians) organization in 1911, though he never made it to the majors due to a knee injury. From 1912 to 1914, Million played for the Tacoma Tigers under Hall of Fame pitcher Joe McGinnity. Million also played with the Sioux City, Moose Jaw, Victoria, and Spokane teams within the Northwestern League. Much of his career was spent at the Class B level, and Million finished with a .257 batting average for his career.
His knee injury ended his career at the age of 25, and when his playing days were done, Million did a brief tour in the Army before moving to Seattle, where he could live close to home. He worked for the city as a claims adjuster before taking on a job working at the local Spalding Sporting Goods store. While working at the store, Million met his future wife, Christine. During his downtime, Million refereed in games for various high school sports.
Million later became a salesman for the Ford Auto Company. When Ford produced its 10 millionth car in the 1920s, the vehicle was shipped to Seattle in order that Ten Million could be the one to sell it. Unsurprisingly, the story made the papers, as a Seattle newspaper ran an article with a photo covering the event.
Here’s a cool video of an around-the-horn triple play by the Durham Bulls. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the play was how cleanly the team executed it. I’d say there is some question as to whether the runner was truly out at first, but it’s still enjoyable to watch, all the same.
On May 13, 1952, pitcher Ron Necciai of the Class D Appalachian League’s Bristol Twins struck out 27 batters, becoming the only pitcher to do so in a nine-inning, professional league game. Four of the opposing Welch Miners hitters did reach base, via a walk, an error, a hit batsman, and a passed ball error on catcher Harry Dunlop. More astonishing, the nineteen-year-old Necciai pitched the game in spite of painful stomach ulcers, and the Twins won the game 7-0.
A couple days ago, I received an email from Dorian (thanks, Dorian!) linking me to the infographic you see below. With it, he asks, “Do you think Branch Rickey deserves his place here?”
Yes, I do.
As a player, his career never amounted to much. Nevertheless, the name Branch Rickey resonates far and wide, especially in association with the name Jackie Robinson. And while the breaking of the color barrier blazed the trail to integration, both in baseball and throughout America, Rickey’s contributions do not stop there. We can also thank Rickey for drafting Roberto Clemente in the 1950s. Clemente went on to become Major League Baseball’s first Latino player to win a World Series as a starting player, to win the World Series MVP award, and to win the National League MVP award. Clemente also became the first Latino player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
In addition to these integral changes, Branch Rickey also created baseball’s minor league farm system while serving as president of the St. Louis Cardinals. This innovation allowed him to develop players within the organization to get them ready for Major League competition. St. Louis became one of baseball’s best teams during this period, and before long, teams throughout Major League Baseball adopted his system. It revolutionized the game as people knew it.
When he moved on to Brooklyn, Rickey also created the first full-time spring training facility, which allowed the Dodgers to train and analyze prospective players in one place. This system also went on to get adopted by teams throughout baseball.
One could argue that all these changes would have occurred in baseball eventually, with or without Rickey. And yes, I agree that they were all bound to happen. But change always has to start somewhere, and in the world of baseball, Branch Rickey served as the catalyst for these revolutionary developments.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about switch-pitcher Tony Mullane, and Steve of Broken Bats Baseball mentioned that the New York Yankees had a switch-pitcher in their organization. A couple days ago, I discovered this video of the last at-bat in a game between the Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones on 19 June 2008. In it, Pat Venditte finds a new level of frustration when he takes the mound against a switch-hitter, though I have to confess, I found it amusing to watch.
There is a certain undeniable charm to Minor League Baseball. Young, aspiring ball players in their late-teens and early-twenties, running out every ground ball as if his life depended on it. Spending their lives on the road in cheap motels, dreaming dreams of castle-like stadiums, celebrity fame, and million-dollar paychecks. One summer, a good friend and I took a road trip to Omaha to watch the Triple-A Royals (now the Storm Chasers) as they won a thrilling game with a walk-off home run. The tickets were cheap, the sun was hot, and the bleachers were uncomfortably hard, but it was still cool to sit there and think that each one of those players was a potential future Kansas City Royal.
The minor leagues as a farm system for major league teams, however, didn’t start out that way. Young players did not start their professional careers by signing with a major league team and then working their way up through their minor league structure. Rather, the minor leagues started out as entitites of their own; dozens of lower-level professional leagues out of which any major league ball club could scout promising talent, and attempt to persuade those players to join their particular big-league team. In other words, playing for a given minor league team did not obligate a player to join a specific major league club when they were ready to take the next step up.
What we know as the Minor Leagues today originally started out as the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. During a meeting at the Leland Hotel in Chicago, minor league executives formed the NAPBL on 5 September 1901. The executive elected Patrick T. Powers the first president of the association. During its first season, in 1902, the NA consisted of fourteen leagues and ninety-six teams. By 1909, those numbers increased to thirty-five leagues and 246 teams. Even united under the NA, however, major league teams played no direct role in the growth and development of future big-leaguers. The concept of farm teams was not born until the 1920s.
Branch Rickey joined the St. Louis Cardinals as president in 1917, moving over from the St. Louis Browns. He recognized early on that the city of St. Louis wasn’t quite large enough to adequately support two major league teams financially. Meanwhile, the National Agreement of 1921 exempted players in five of the leagues in the minors (including the top three of these leagues) from the annual player draft. The leagues, therefore, could hold onto players as long as they wished, or even hold out until a major league team offered the right price for a player. This had allowed the minor leagues as a whole to thrive, but it also resulted in disgruntled minor league players and hurt those Major League teams, such as the Cardinals, that did not possess fat checkbooks.
In order to ensure that the Cardinals could compete with teams like the Yankees and the Cubs, Rickey convinced the team’s majority owner, Sam Breadon, to purchase a controlling interest in the International League’s Syracuse team, the Texas League’s Houston club, as well as a string of other lower-level minor league teams. By 1930, seven minor league clubs were owned by or had close working agreements with the Cardinals. This allowed the organization watch and develop their own future players, molding them to become major leaguers.
In addition to developing the farm system, Rickey increased the number of scouts he hired and sent them out to sign as many young prospects as possible for as little money as possible. Out of the larger pool of ball players, the Cardinals were able to develop and discover quality players more consistently. On the flip side, of course, many promising young players opted for better-paying careers, rather than risk an attempt with baseball, which started out paying next to nothing.. Nevertheless, as a result of Rickey’s innovative system, the Cardinals quickly became one of the top clubs in the Majors, winning the World Series in 1926 over the Yankees, then securing another pennant in 1928 (only to lose the championship to the Yankees in a sweep).
The Detroit Tigers were the first to begin emulating the minor league farm system during the 1920s, and by the 1930s, all Major League teams were following suit. It was, you might say, an early form of Moneyball, a system that gave clubs with a financial disadvantage a fighting chance at competing with big money teams. Over time, the system grew and developed into the Minor League Baseball organization that we know today.
