Branch B. Rickey: Reflections on the Minors

One of the surprising pleasures of my life was being elected president of a Triple-A baseball league. Interestingly, this occurred five years ago, just about when the minor league, at all levels, leaped into a period of an unexpected and unparalleled renaissance. This revival of the minors has occurred during a time of turmoil at the major league level.

I characterize the course of the minors as an “unparalleled renaissance” primarily because of the tremendous scope of new park construction and the huge investment in facilities. This is so much greater than anything in preceding decades. Clearly, the number of professional baseball leagues will never again flourish as they did in the late 1940s, when dozens of leagues developed and teams could be found playing in the smallest towns.

However, the teams of today, grouped in seventeen “organized” leagues, all members of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, have a sophistication of operation and a stability of management and governance of which the post-WWII leagues would never have even dreamed.

While the operation of today’s clubs is professional in a methodical fashion, for the fans the minors have managed to retain a special, almost rustic image, and conjure up in many minds a mystique right out of Field of Dreams. Anyone following daily media accounts is keenly aware that major league baseball is mainstream in American — yet larger than life; it is filled with stars and superstars; it is glitz and television; it is money and prime time; it is uptown and mega-seating. It fills a distinct function in our society — that need by some portion of our population to fantasize about rags-to-riches dreams come true.

However, our society is broad; it is not bound to one style of thing in any genre. Minor league baseball’s resurgence is due, in part, to its establishing of a very desirable, unchallenged, niche. It is charm; it is more “boys playing a sport”; it is not uptown, but hometown; it is not glitz, but grass roots; it is honest effort; it has crazy promotions and crowd involvement. It is something that many of us as adults think our society has nearly lost.

My love of minor league baseball is probably rooted in some wistful attachment to playing baseball myself as a youngster. Also, my emotion partly reflects some nostalgic feelings about the folklore of “old-time players” doing the unexpected, some bizarre thing that even today, when retold, are apt to capture anyone’s imagination. One might mistakenly dismiss the resurgence of the minors as some chasing of nostalgia, but the minors are not caught in any aura of yesteryear. The minors are thriving in the mood of the  present. A visit I made to Victory Field in Indianapolis this season made me quite aware of this. The park there is practically new, having opened on July 11, 1996. A sold-out crowd of roughly 12,000 enthusiastic Hoosiers flocked to it.

The stadium sits in the southwest corner of Indianapolis’ downtown, with a wide-open center field, foul pole to foul pole, which focuses your attention — especially during the setting sun — on the streamlined skyscrapers and glass-windowed hotels and offices of the downtown skyline. The friendly design of the  stadium is satisfying in every aspect of modern sport-facility architecture. Major or minor, it’s the best park in which I’ve ever watched a baseball game.

Minor league baseball is played in many wonderful towns like Indianapolis. Most of the minor league towns are smaller than Indy, but a common thread in so many of those ballparks is the discernable sense of community reflected in the attitudes of the fans who attend. Look at almost any minor league crowd. You find people who know each other. Generally, they’re “just folks.”  Often they have children in tow, sharing together, as a family, this traditional game. They can afford to bring the kids. They can closely follow the action, or they can pop in and out to concession and souvenir stands. There is a general sense of comfort in the air. After all, it is the fans who set the mood at a minor league game.

This is not to indicate that the minors are rural America. For decades the “minors” held a reputation of “bus leagues, bus leagues and mom and pop operations.”  Athletes reaching the majors looked back on their careers and laughed at their early years. But the minors are no longer the subject of that type of jesting. They are now viewed as an industry. But even in this, they are distinct from the majors. Though an industry by all accepted financial norms, minor league teams enjoy a “local” image, the pride of the city, something other industries wish they could duplicate.

The primary influence which has made the bush league description passe is the phenomenal surge in the construction of new ballparks. Today, women who never relished the thought of using public restrooms at a ballpark are finding lavatory facilities the equal of modern multiplex cinemas. Concession stands are no longer hot dog and popcorn shacks wedged in some tight, dark location. They are brightly lit, strategically placed, often overlooking the playing field, and more than likely, armed with closed circuit television monitors covering the game.

What’s more, the seats are no longer wood slat holdovers from pre-WWII; they are body-molded plastic for easy access and comfort. In the outfield there may be a spacious patio lawn surrounding the fence, where fans can spread blankets and picnic while watching both the game and their cavorting children. As for sight-lines, these smaller stadiums are so compact and streamlined it’s difficult not to have a great seat.

Field lights are no longer mounted on oversized telephone poles. The modern mercury or argon lights sit stop towering metal standards designed to sway in the wind. Nowadays, the average fan can’t distinguish the lighting at most minor league parks from the majors.

Perhaps the charm of the old scoreboard, with manually hung, painted numbers is lost, but the replacement is hard to fault — a bright scoreboard and message center, often with graphics capability and the launching pad for celebratory fireworks.

In the old days, the peak of any music in minor league game was the playing of the national anthem. Now, the modern sound systems rock their crowds into excitement. After the game, bright, bouncy music replays in your head long after you’ve left the parking lot.

If one were to single out an overriding aspect of attending a game anywhere in the minor league, I would venture to suggest that “stress-loss” is the most singular difference. One doesn’t have to park twelve blocks away to save money. Ballpark parking costs about the price of a hot dog. Parking is usually in supervised areas. Crime is so negligible that even petty vandalism is unexpected. It’s a nice feeling to have an easy walk both to and from the park and to be free to say hello to acquaintances. It’s a nice feeling to pay ticket prices that equate to parking prices. What a satisfaction to arrive or leave without having to worry about when the traffic is the worst. In general, it’s just nice to be able to relax completely. Certainly that helps make fans want to come back time and again.

Meanwhile, with all of these factors adorning the game, surrounding it, promoting it, none has changed the “game” itself. In fact, the game, as it is played between the line, is remarkably unchanged. Young athletes desperate to be a success, to become stars, are dreaming their dreams and playing to their fullest. They give heart and soul, and sometimes, body to win. They play with the zest of youth — and their zest becomes contagious to the fans.

In summary, minor league baseball has changed completely. Yet this industry is based on a game that has changed very little. The mix combines the best of tradition and revolution. In the middle of our modern, high-speed existence, I find that minor league baseball is more vibrant than ever, and I grin a big grin every time I hear of another new park springing to life. While it’s not the majors, for many of us it’s just exactly where we want to sink down into a seat and just enjoy listening to the crack of the bat.

BRANCH B. RICKEY is president of the American Association; grandson of legendary Branch Rickey.