Last week, OMDQ wrote a piece about the former MLB players who are hanging around the Independent leagues. That inspired the Gary RailCats to tell us about their successes in that area. We received the following email touting Tony Cogan and the rest of the RailCats roster: “Tony Cogan is our only current RailCats player with Major League experience, but currently we have two players that used to be RailCats that our on Major...
Indy
Indy Spotlight – The Ballparks
Minor league ballparks have always been a source of fascination for me. One of the most interesting things about working for the Nashua Pride (how many more mentions can I make of that job before the hate mail starts rolling in?) was “Historic” Holman Stadium, a city-owned ballpark that played host to a number of amateur activities (including, for many years, high school football) as well as the various professional baseball teams that rolled through the area over the...
It’s Never Too Late To Learn A Knuckleball
It’s embarassing, really, to be one of the writers for a blog about minor league baseball – a writer who has taken it upon himself to follow the numerous independent leagues this season – and to realize after checking your RSS feed that you have been beaten to the punch (by seven hours) on a pretty cool little story. Damn you, Will Leitch! Here’s the deal: the American Association’s St. Paul Saints, an organization...
Indy Spotlight – Holding the Flavor of the Month’s – Ahem – in the Bus Leagues
When I promised last week to provide a relatively accurate list of former major leaguers that are currently listed on independent rosters, I had no idea what a task it would become. Did you guys know there are like eight independent leagues out there? Eighty or so teams? Somewhere in the vicinity of 1,600 players? That’s a lot of players. Throw in a vicious flu/bronchitis that hit on Monday morning and it’s a miracle...
Two Roads Diverged
On a shelf in my parents’ living room, there is a baseball signed by every attendee of the 2004 New Hampshire Baseball Dinner. Some of the names are starting to fade, but most are still clearly visible. Jim Rice. Johnny Pesky. Rick Wise. Butch Hobson. Bill Monbouquette. It’s one of those items that is pretty cool to have, even if the actual monetary value is probably nonexistent. In addition to some of the big...
Independent League Opening Dates
Opening dates for the eight independent leagues currently scheduled to operate in 2008: Atlantic League – April 25 American Association – May 7 (Sioux City @ Wichita only); full schedule begins May 8 United League Baseball – May 13 Northern League – May 15 Frontier League – May 18 (Washington @ Chillicothe only); full schedule begins May 21 Canadian-American League – May 22 Golden Baseball League – May 22 Continental Baseball League – May...
Indy Spotlight – The Managers
With the start of independent minor league baseball right around the corner – the Atlantic League opens in ten days, on April 25 – the time seemed right to finally bust out that Indy Spotlight for which regular readers of this site have surely been clamoring. That was clamoring I heard, was it not? For this week’s inaugaral segment, I decided to look at something that has always been of interest to me: big name...
Ken Cail Is Leaving Nashua; This Is The Saddest News Ever
Okay, so maybe it’s not the saddest news ever. But for anyone who has ever attended a Nashua Pride game at Holman Stadium, the announcement in today’s Nashua Telegraph that Cail, the team’s play-by-play announcer since its inception in 1998, is leaving to broadcast Lowell Spinners games is upsetting. The lede to Tom King’s story perfectly explains Cail’s importance to Nashua and its Pride: One day, just prior to a Nashua Pride game a...
Miners vs. Wingnuts: Who You Got?
We haven’t touched on Darren Rovell’s Minor League Baseball Logo Contest yet, mainly because Eric has been sharing his love of college basketball with the world and I’ve been too lazy to worry about silly little things like minor league baseball logos. Whaddya think this is, a minor league baseball blog? Oh. Right. Anyway, as you already know if you clicked on the link above, Rovell’s contest has reached the boiling point, with just...
Fare Thee Well, Elliot Spitzer Night
Earlier this month, team officials for the Macon Music, a participant in the independent South Coast League, announced plans for “Elliot Spitzer Night” at the ballpark, to be held June 13. The idea took advantage of Spitzer’s disgrace to draw the team national attention at both the mainstream media and blogosphere levels. EVERYONE was talking about it. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen behind in my reading recently, so it was only today that I stumbled upon two very sad...
Bus Leagues Photos
2012 05 14 Scranton Wilks Barre/ Empire State Yankees vs Pawtucket Red Sox
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