As my interest in Minor League history grows, I have found myself surfing more and more for sites with historical insight. Among the most prestigious of these sites is the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) Minor Leagues Research Committee. For years, the committee put out newsletters, but lately their focus has been on the epic role of filling in the Baseball Reference Minor League Baseball historical stats. After contacting the committee, Committee Chair...
A few weeks ago, I wrote about what I thought was one of the more interesting promotions in the Florida State League this year, the Dunedin Blue Jays “Turn Back the Clock Night“. After writing the post, I decided to contact the Dunedin team and ask about the promotion, how it came to be, and how it went. Big thanks to Craig Dunham for setting this up and many thanks to Vincent Caffiero for...
Any baseball fan who lived through the early days of the Nintendo generation holds a special place in their heart for RBI Baseball. Of course, with the passage of time and the retirement of every player in the game (can you believe Julio Franco actually played 20 seasons after the game was released?), RBI Baseball became a distant memory, replaced by more high-fangled and less-cartoonish MLB video games. Fortunately, some artistic video folks have...
Earlier this season, the Tampa Bay Rays held a “Turn Back the Clock Night”, dressing up in 1979-style Tampa Bay jerseys. There was only one problem: there was no Tampa Bay Rays or Devil Rays in 1979. Whereas some teams have worn jerseys of teams that have left their city, long-forgotten minor league teams, or honored Negro League teams long since passed, the Rays might have been the first team to create their own...
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the heckler who harassed Carl Crawford before a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game. I wrote that fans will be fans and people will be people and some people just don’t like certain types of other people. It’s not pretty, it’s not fair, nor in most circles is it socially acceptable, but it is life. However, one of the caveats I mentioned was that “if the person who...
Last week, a fan in Manchester, New Hampshire heckled rehabing Red Sox outfield Carl Crawford. Besides calling Crawford “overrated” and “overpaid”, the fan also allegedly called Crawford a name insulting Crawford’s race. ESPNBoston thought this was a big deal. I don’t. Fans are fans, by-and-large a cross-section of the people of the area, and are rarely public figures. It is not news that some anonymous people dislike people of different races, creeds, colors, sexes, or religion. That’s...
A quick bit of news coming through Our Sports Central’s Florida State League feed. According to OSC, the Milwaukee Brewers have renewed their player development contract with the Brevard County Manatees through the 2014 season. The Brewers have used the FSL Manatees franchise as their High-A Florida State League team since 2005. Via OSC, 27 ballplayers have made it to the Major Leagues after playing with the Milwaukee farm club, including Ryan Braun. Viera’s Space...
(Update: Skeeters, never stop being you. Seriously. The same day everyone wrote about how Scott Kazmir was joining the Sugar Land Skeeters, the Skeeters website had a headline that stated “Two-time AL All-Star, former Major Leaguer join Skeeters“. Of course, “AL All-Star” doesn’t always mean American League. In this case, it means Atlantic League. And that convenient comma between “All-Star” and ”former”, that can mean two separate players. In this case, it does as the Skeeters...
Being in Afghanistan, I am missing a lot of Florida baseball. I’m missing the Rays and I am also missing the Florida State League. The FSL All-Star Game was played this past Saturday in Port Charlotte, home of the Charlotte Stone Crabs and roughly an hour and half south of where I used to live. Had I been in the country, I surely would have been at the game. Fortunately, Jim Donten, formerly of Claw...
Every so often, we like to talk to other writers who spend long hours chronicling the exploits of those in the Minor Leagues. Kevin Gengler of RaysProspects.com is one such writer. Kevin has been covering the Rays system for several years and has become one of the premier go-to subject matter experts on things minor league Rays-related. Kevin has been an e-migo of the site for a while, having Mike as part of the...
2012 05 14 Scranton Wilks Barre/ Empire State Yankees vs Pawtucket Red Sox
