“I’m gonna get to Portland, and Pawtucket, and Lowell, and Vermont, and Tri-City, and New Britain…” I told myself as I made a list of every home game that those nearby teams would be playing. I was gonna be a positive northeastern Ben Hill, a minor league version of a minor league baseball writer (and Ben is a major league minor league writer, if you want to confuse things even more).

Alas, it was not meant to be. The reasons aren’t important. Some family stuff, some work stuff – the usual. The upshot is that I visited three new major league stadiums (Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium, and Citizens Bank Park), made a second trip to Camden Yards, and attended several games as both fan and “media” at Merchantsauto.com Stadium in Manchester, but reached the beginning of September without scratching any new minor league facilities off the list.

That just would not do, so last Friday, my wife and I rounded up our nephew and ventured north to Portland, Maine’s Hadlock Field to watch the Sea Dogs take on our hometown New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It wasn’t just a battle between two Eastern League rivals, but another installment in the ongoing brawl between baseball and Mother Nature, with Hurricane Earl barreling up the eastern seaboard. Though the Red Sox and White Sox were postponed in Boston before Portland’s game even started, this brawl turned out like most baseball fights: uneventful. While the threat of wind and rain helped keep the fans away, limiting the attendance to 4,025 hardy souls, it only showered three times in the two hours and twenty-four minutes it took to play the game: once in the third, once in the fifth, and once in the seventh. The first burst brought in a nice layer of rolling fog that made it impossible to track fly balls off the bat.

Hadlock made a solid impression right off the bat, with $5 parking right across the street from the ballpark and a big statue of the mascot, Slugger, outside the gates. It felt like the minor leagues, in a good way. The concourses were wide, easily able to accommodate the fans in attendance (all 2,500 or so of us), and decorated with a variety of Sea Dogs-related photos and plaques, including the team’s Hall of Fame, team photos dating back to the early 1990s (when the team was the Marlins Double-A affiliate) and a list of players who had gone on to play in the major leagues.

There was also a team store, where my nephew soon bought a Red Sox hat (he wanted a Yankees hat, but my wife talked him out of it), and a bored-looking vendor selling programs for $3. I bought one, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to commemorate my first trip north of the border, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had won a free set of 1995 Sea Dogs baseball cards, featuring such luminaries as Antonio Alfonseca, Edgar Renteria, and Carlos Tosca. Suh-weet. This prompted me to look long and hard at the 2009 ($5) and 2010 ($8) team sets, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Not at those prices.

We did pull the trigger on food. A lot of food. BBQ chicken sandwich (excellent), fried dough (best I’ve ever had), fries, Sea Dogs biscuits (aka ice cream sandwiches with chocolate chips), and whatever the kid packed away. I’m selling it short by only mentioning it for four sentences, but the concessions at Hadlock were some of the best I’ve had at a ballpark (the only negative: it was tough to find some stuff because stands closed early due to the attendance, and most stands didn’t carry stuff like fried food or sausage).

Our seats were on the 200-level, just to the left of home plate, and offered a fantastic view of the field. Two things immediately stood out: one, a giant Green Monster replica (cleverly dubbed the “Maine Monster”) serves as the left field wall, complete with Citgo sign and Coke bottle on top, and two, a large brick building sits off the right field line, fairly close to the field (although not close enough to effect balls in play). I asked an usher about it after the game and he identified it as The Expo, home of Portland’s D-League team, the Maine Red Claws. He also noted that it had been there for a long time (he, a man who appeared to be in his sixties, had played there as a boy; Wikipedia says it was built in 1914), that Hadlock had replaced a high school baseball field, and that there were still high school football fields beyond the right field wall, which explained the whistles we heard late in the game.

I had just returned from watching the Red Sox play in Baltimore the day before and couldn’t help but continue noticing how strange it is to watch one’s home team play on the road. It always feels like the crowd is cheering at the wrong time, and my wife noted on several occasions that she was the only one openly supporting the Fisher Cats.

That said, it was nice to see and hear the passion of the fans. They challenged umpires’ calls, shouted encouragement to their players, expressed delight at a perfectly timed pitchout, and exhorted the home team to bounce back from an early 3-0 deficit. While it helped that New Hampshire starter Zach Stewart left after three innings, the Sea Dogs never quit, setting the tone for a weekend sweep that helped keep New Hampshire from taking over first place in the division. I think my favorite person was a crazy lady behind home plate who kept jumping out of her seat and walking around and cheering loudly, waving her arms to get the crowd involved. For the last two innings, after Portland had surged ahead, her chant stayed fairly constant: “We never give up, New Hampshire! We never quit!”

To this, my lovely wife responded, “Even though you’re fourteen games behind?” Her first “Scoreboard” comment. I couldn’t have been more proud.

Near the end of the game, we sent our nephew on a recon mission to see if it would be possible to sneak down to the largely empty seats behind home plate. We quickly learned that he is the worst seat-upgrader ever. He bounded down the steps like a colt that had just discovered its legs, turning around every few steps to flash us a huge grin. He sat down in a seat, turned around, grinned again, jumped up, ran back up the stairs, crossed to the other end of the row, ran back down the stairs, chose another seat, turned around, grinned again. It was nice to see such unbridled joy from a kid who was just happy to be within spitting distance of actual professional baseball players, even if it made him totally conspicuous.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. It was foggy and a little rainy and the home team was winning – no usher, not even Biff, was going to kick us out of seats that hadn’t been occupied all night. It might as well have been general admission. So we watched the last couple innings from the first and second rows behind home plate, Section 108. Once, my wife said how nervous it made her, even with the screen. I pointed to David Cooper, waiting in the on-deck circle almost directly in front of us, unprotected by anything but his reflexes. “Imagine how he feels,” I said.

The thing about the minor leagues, though, is that it’s not all about the prospects. It’s also about the guys who spend years in the minors, scratching and clawing and fighting every day just to keep their jobs. When one of those guys gets called up, it feels entirely different, because their stories are about hard work and perseverance and succeeding against long odds.

This season, five guys with a ton of minor league experience, all of them over the age of thirty, have gotten the call. Three of them have already made their debuts, while two others are still waiting to enter a game for the first time as major leaguers.

Jesus Feliciano, New York Mets – June 10 – Feliciano made his major league debut four days after his 31st birthday, striking out as a pinch hitter against San Diego’s Mike Adams in the first game of a doubleheader. He started the second game and went 0-4. In 31 games so far, he has hit .275/.286/.362. He has hit .300 at Triple-A in each of the last four seasons, including .339 in 336 at-bats this year.

Erik Kratz, Pittsburgh Pirates – July 17 – Kratz has only played 625 minor league games, but he’s already thirty, so I thought he merited inclusion here. That, and his call-up story was great: playing in the Triple-A All-Star game, his manager told him he could go to the major leagues or stay in the game. Easy call. He spent two weeks with the Pirates, going 2-5 with a run scored and an RBI in his first game before falling into a 2-31 slump.

Max St. Pierre, Detroit Tigers – September 4 – St. Pierre spent fourteen seasons in the minor leagues, appearing in 978 games and earning a reputation for being a solid defensive backstop. He made his debut last Saturday, starting a rally with his first major league hit in his fourth at-bat (he turned into pinch-runner Brennan Boesch, who scored the eventual winning run).

John Lindsey, Los Angeles Dodgers – has not played – Lindsey has nearly 1,600 minor league games on his resume since 1995. In 2005-06, he played 125 games in the independent Can-Am League; since returning to affiliated ball, he’s hit exactly 100 homeruns, driven in 401 runs, and hit over .300 three times.

J.C. Boscan, Atlanta Braves – has not played – Boscan was called up on September 1 after fourteen seasons and 976 games. The defensive numbers are incomplete, but he thrown out 34% of would-be base stealers in his career, including 100 out of 152 in 1999 alone (a year in which he also had 13 errors and 15 passed balls).

The Kansas City Royals announced this morning that they have purchased the contract of outfielder Jarrod Dyson from Triple-A Omaha. This news is largely unremarkable except for one small detail: Dyson was Kansas City’s 50th round pick in the 2006 draft.

Assuming Baseball-Reference’s draft database is somewhat current, this makes Dyson something of a unique player. Since 1998, when the draft was capped at fifty rounds, only four other players taken in the final round have reached the major leagues: David Murphy (2000), Zach Jackson (2001), Chris Davis (2004), and Buster Posey (2005). Each turned down the team that drafted them, went back to school, and was later drafted again, in a much higher round. Murphy, Jackson, and Posey became first rounders; Davis was taken in the fifth round.

Dyson, though, was just a fiftieth rounder, a 21-year-old community college kid who signed a contract and entered the world of minor league baseball. That should’ve been the beginning of the end. He should’ve signed that deal, played a couple years without distinction, been released, and moved on to the next chapter of his life. That’s what happens to guys chosen in the fiftieth round – out of 320 players chosen in that round since 1998, only Dyson signed immediately, worked his way up, and eventually reached the majors.

How did this happen? Well, Dyson climbed through the system using his speed (131 steals in 163 attempts, an 80% success rate). He doesn’t get on base a ton (.344 career on-base percentage, and it’s gone lower as he’s moved up), but when you’re that fast, I think teams are willing to forgive some poor plate discipline. He’s also handled 213 outfield chances this year, with three errors, ten assists, and a range factor per game of 3.13. Those all sound reasonably good to me, so why not give the guy a shot as a pinch-runner/defensive replacement?

However you look at it, the mere fact that Dyson is on a major league roster right now is exceptionally cool. He started out almost as close to the bottom of the minor league ladder as you can get, worked hard, and made it to the top. Good for him.

Much like the last “Now Batting For…” post, this will feature three prospects who were called up in the last few days.

* I almost dropped the ball entirely on Freddie Freeman. The big (6′5″, 225 lbs), 20-year-old first baseman had his contract purchased from Gwinnett a week ago and has since appeared in four games, starting one. He began his career 0-6 with two strikeouts before singling off Clay Hensley on Sunday for his first hit.

My favorite thing about Freeman is the remarkable similarity between his 2008 numbers at Single-A Rome and his 2010 numbers at Triple-A Gwinnett. Lookie here:

And he just turns 21 next weekend.

* I remember during last year’s Lozoball draft, there was some discussion about Boston’s Lars Anderson and his potential ceiling. I think five forty-homer seasons was the general consensus.

That was before Anderson’s difficult 2009 season, when he hit just .233 with nine homers and 51 RBI for Double-A Portland. For whatever reason, injury or difficulty adjusting to a higher level, he just couldn’t make consistently solid contact. The Red Sox sent him back to Portland to start this season, and he immediately turned it around, hitting .355 with five homeruns and 16 RBI in 17 games to earn a promotion to Triple-A Pawtucket. After 10 homeruns and 53 RBI there, the Red Sox decided he was ready for a taste of the big leagues, purchasing his contract and adding him to the major league roster.

* The Twins don’t have a whole lot to be happy about in the upper levels of their minor league system, with both Rochester and New Britain experiencing disappointing seasons in 2010. One of the bright spots, however, was Ben Revere, the 22-year-old outfielder who hit .305 with 36 stolen bases in Double-A.

Revere is just finishing up his fourth season in the minor leagues, with a career average of .328, on-base percentage of .389, and 146 stolen bases. He has also been caught 52 times, for a success rate of 73%, a number that has remained consistent across four different minor league levels. I’m not sure he’s remarkably different from someone like Jacoby Ellsbury, although Ellsbury had slightly more success on the basepaths (107 steals, caught 27 times) and demonstrated a little more power (.412 slugging for Revere, .427 for Ellsbury).

I flew out of Manchester while the rest of my family flew out of Boston, which meant I arrived in the Charm City a good two hours ahead of everyone else. I used that gap to my advantage, taking the train from the airport to the ballpark and wandering around, looking at the sights I had missed on my previous visit.

While strolling down Eutaw Street, I took a picture of a couple homerun plaques (a small, round, brass plaque marks the spot of homeruns that land on Eutaw Street; there are just over fifty of them, if memory serves). Then, a couple more. Finally, I decided to get pictures of as many as possible, all of them if I could.

The list after the break is as close to complete as I could get. It’s entirely possible that a couple are missing because some of the plaques are hard to find. The Lee Stevens plaque from 1998, for example, is partially hidden under a vendor’s cart, and another one (I think it was Hank Blalock), was on the wrong side of a fence. (Also, it will become incomplete as soon as they add the 2010 plaques to the street. No idea how many there will be, but Luke Scott hit one out there last Wednesday.)

If I am missing any, please feel free to contact us. Even if I don’t have a picture, I can at least put it on the list.

Name	Team	Date	Distance	Career HR
Mickey Tettleton	Detroit Tigers	April 20, 1992	406	245
Kevin Reimer	Texas Rangers	May 05, 1992	403	52
Lee Stevens	Anaheim Angels	May 23, 1992	430	144
Ken Griffey Jr.	Seattle Mariners	July 12, 1993	465	630
Ken Griffey Jr.	Seattle Mariners	April 24, 1994	438	630
Kevin Bass	Baltimore Orioles	June 08, 1995	410	118
Brady Anderson	Baltimore Orioles	April 27, 1996	380	210
Paul O’Neill	New York Yankees	April 30, 1996	431	281
Mo Vaughn	Boston Red Sox	July 07, 1996	419	328
Jim Thome	Cleveland Indians	July 26, 1996	440	584
Eddie Murray	Baltimore Orioles	August 14, 1996	384	504
Bobby Bonilla	Baltimore Orioles	September 08, 1996	405	287
Rafael Palmeiro	Baltimore Orioles	April 11, 1997	411	569
Rafael Palmeiro	Baltimore Orioles	April 11, 1997	408	569
Henry Rodriguez	Montreal Expos	June 17, 1997	443	160
Lee Stevens	Texas Rangers	May 30, 1998	415	144
Carlos Delgado	Toronto Blue Jays	June 21, 1998	415	473
Rafael Palmeiro	Baltimore Orioles	July 24, 1998	413	569
Brady Anderson	Baltimore Orioles	April 29, 1999	420	210
Troy O’Leary	Boston Red Sox	June 22, 1999	413	127
Delino DeShields	Baltimore Orioles	August 08, 1999	422	80
Jim Thome	Cleveland Indians	September 05, 1999	420	584
Matt Stairs	Oakland Athletics	September 23, 1999	423	262
Carl Everett	Boston Red Sox	May 11, 2000	429	202
Jeff Liefer	Chicago White Sox	June 21, 2001	410	31
Shawn Green	Los Angeles Dodgers	June 08, 2002	410	328
Gary Matthews	Baltimore Orioles	July 19, 2002	406	108
Ben Grieve	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	August 29, 2002	435	118
Jay Gibbons	Baltimore Orioles	June 28, 2003	420	124
Hank Blalock	Texas Rangers	July 22, 2003	380	153
Aubrey Huff	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	August 21, 2003	414	225
David Ortiz	Boston Red Sox	September 09, 2003	430	344
Jay Gibbons	Baltimore Orioles	April 23, 2004	393	124
Justin Morneau	Minnesota Twins	July 25, 2004	412	181
Eric Hinske	Toronto Blue Jays	August 22, 2004	385	123
Rafael Palmeiro	Baltimore Orioles	September 29, 2004	390	569
Jason Giambi	New York Yankees	September 29, 2005	420	413
Brian Roberts	Baltimore Orioles	July 31, 2006	410	80
Johnny Damon	New York Yankees	September 28, 2007	390	214
Jason Giambi	New York Yankees	May 27, 2008	415	413
Jason Giambi	New York Yankees	May 28, 2008	410	413
Nick Markakis	Baltimore Orioles	June 14, 2008	395	86
Lance Berkman	Houston Astros	June 18, 2008	430	326
Alex Gordon	Kansas City Royals	July 01, 2008	425	43
Luke Scott	Baltimore Orioles	July 19, 2008	420	102
Robinson Cano	New York Yankees	August 22, 2008	425	113
Luke Scott	Baltimore Orioles	September 08, 2008	415	102
Aubrey Huff	Baltimore Orioles	April 21, 2009	415	225
Adam Dunn	Washington Nationals	June 28, 2009	44?	349
Luke Scott	Baltimore Orioles	July 11, 2009	394	102
Luke Scott	Baltimore Orioles	September 01, 2009	412	102