Tucson Mexican Baseball Fiesta
Besides seeing the future of Major League Baseball, and besides the game’s casualness and coziness, one of best things about baseball in the Bus Leagues is promotions. Every year there are some great promotions throughout the Minors, from cannon-shot stuntmen to actors masquerading as former Mexican legends and of course dozens, if hundreds, of culinary exhibitions. Although I won’t be attending any minor league games this year, there are a several promotions I would...
Last week, Scott ended an amazingly prolific alphabetical look at some of the most interesting prospects in minor league baseball. He profiled the interesting, the famous, and the unfamiliar. I don’t know about anyone else, but I learned a lot. In order to organize all of the great posts in Scott’s series, I figured I would list them in one post. So here they are in order: Prospect A-Z Day 1: Nolan Arenado Prospect...
Before the 2011 minor league baseball season began, RaysProspects.com asked several Rays bloggers and Minor League bloggers their thoughts on players in the Rays system. As a writer here and at RaysIndex.com, I was honored to be part of the collective. After the season, Kevin of RaysProspects reviewed everyone’s picks and talked about how they did. Here are my picks and Kevin’s responses to how I did: Upper-Level Breakout: Mike Lortz (of Bus Leagues...
Hey folks, I have a big announcement: My job is sending me to Afghanistan for a year in late January / early February. After being unemployed for most of 2011, I decided to take a job working for a military contractor out of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. The job was contingent on my ability to go to Afghanistan for a year. So after I take my physicals, get my shots, do my...
We are happy to announce the release of our second annual book: The Bus Leagues Experience Volume 2. Like our first release, The Bus Leagues Experience Volume 2 is a collection of interviews and conversations with some of the brightest prospects in Minor League Baseball as well as coaches, media personnel, fans, and other people associated with the lower levels of professional baseball. Volume 2 expands on our original work by featuring the voices...
Last week I finally saw Moneyball. While the baseball community knows Moneyball for its unique perspective on team building, Moneyball is also unique as a baseball movie. As in the book, Moneyball the movie focuses on the struggle of the Oakland A’s to rebuild after the departure of Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen. While the story of plucky underdogs who make the playoffs after their superstars leave the team is not unusual...
This Part 3 of our extensive interview with Miami-based baseball historian Kurt Schweizer. Part 1 and Part 2 are available here. You can find more of Kurt’s efforts on his Original Miami Marlins Facebook page, his feature story on growing up on Miami baseball, and his photo essay of Miami Stadium. Bus Leagues Baseball: Have you heard whether or not the Marlins will recognize any of the extensive history of Miami baseball or the...
This is Part 2 of our interview with Kurt Schweizer. You can find Part 1 here. Bus Leagues Baseball: When did you start documenting the end of Miami Stadium? KS: Well, I knew, going back to about the early-90s, that its days were really numbered. There was a fight to save it from demolition, that was led by a couple of the producers of the documentary and I was involved with that. But, that...
In an effort to continue exploring the history and impact of Minor League Baseball in Florida, I’ve been corresponding with Kurt Schweizer, unofficial historian of minor league baseball in Miami, especially the original Miami Marlins. With the Florida Marlins renaming themselves the “Miami Marlins” and moving into a new stadium in 2012, I thought it would be great to talk with Kurt and get his opinions of baseball in South Florida, and also learn...
For someone who writes a lot about baseball, I don’t read too many books on the sport. Although I have my favorite books such as “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” and “Boys of Summer”, my baseball reading is usually pretty sparse. This year however, I’ve been on a bit of a baseball literary kick. Before the season I read Jonah Keri’s “The Extra 2%”, the story about the assembly of the Tampa Bay...
