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Minor League Baseball begins centennial season
Posted: Tues May 1, 2001 at 2:28 p.m. EDT by Kevin Winter and Josh Goldfine Staff Writers BOSTON (Ticker) -- On April 4, the Memphis Redbirds hosted the Nashville Sounds in the Class AAA Pacific Coast League season opener. The game, for which both teams wore uniforms from early last century, commemorated the 100th season of minor league baseball. Today's version of minor league baseball is clearly different from that which existed prior to the first World War. In fact, there are few similarities between today's system and that which existed just a decade ago. It is hard to believe how the minor leagues moved from an unstable, erratic collection of independent teams to the united, fan-friendly complementary piece to the major leagues that we know today. The inception of Minor League Baseball (or the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues as it was dubbed in the earlier days) actually dates back to 1901, when the presidents of seven independent minor leagues got together and established a system that was designed to protect the teams, the town and the players. "[The Association] was formed because the minor leagues were fighting with each other and stealing each other's players," said Mike Moore, who has presided over Minor League Baseball for the last decade. "Before the organization was formed, there was no agreement between the major leagues and the minor leagues. It was complete chaos. If the major leagues wanted players, they just went and got them." Under the guidance of Patrick Powers, the Association's first president, the minor leagues soon established a system of player drafts, classification sections, a salary structure, as well as territorial and contractual protections. Many of the systems established then remain in place today. While the minor leagues stumbled with the rest of baseball in the Depression-infected 1930s, the minor league game roared back during the post World War II era. According to minorleaguebaseball.com, the Association's official web site, "there were 52 league and 388 teams [in 1947], which jumped to 58 and 438 a year later and 59 leagues with 448 teams in the peak year of 1949." Expansion by the major leagues in the 1950s and '60s hurt the minor league game, but the minors began to prosper again as a viable low-cost, fan-friendly alternative to the major league game in the 1970s. Many fans who became increasingly disenchanted with the major leagues turned to the minors. As a result, the minor leagues prospered and expanded to the point where the game is today. "In the 1970s, minor league games became a fun thing to do," Moore said. "Owners got people to have fun at the park. It is centered on a fun, family atmosphere." "That's our bread and butter," Class AAA International League President Randy Mobley said. "We try to provide a family atmosphere with affordable prices and a good product." Since 1990, over 90 new ballparks have been erected throughout the minor leagues. The Toledo Mud Hens of the International League are in the process of building a new downtown ballpark, which is scheduled to open next season. The park's completion will culminate an overhaul of each of the league's 14 facilities, with every team having renovated or built new parks within the past 25 years. Last season there were seven new or renovated ballparks in the National Association. Among the most notable additions was the Dell Diamond in Round Rock, Texas, which is part-owned and operated by Nolan Ryan and his son, Reid, and drew a Class AA record 660,000 fans in the franchise's inaugural season. Other new facilities were erected across the country, ranging from the downtown Memphis-based AutoZone Park to Fifth Third Field in Dayton, Ohio. Nearly 38 million spectators visited minor league facilities across the nation last season, the highest attendance figures since 1947. Over the last 30 years, attendance figures in the minor leagues have nearly quadrupled. "I think [the attendance] is indicative of the new ballparks that are being built in many mid-sized and smaller communities, the very reasonable and affordable family entertainment and the whole grass-roots marketing approach that minor league teams take," Toledo general manager Joseph Napoli said. The fact remains the national pastime has infected the lives of Americans since baseball's inception. Now, a family of four can attend a baseball game in a comfortable environment, without taking out a second mortgage to do so. Moore plans to spend much of the centennial season on the road. He traveled to Memphis for the season opener and plans to check out several new parks over the course of the season, particularly two in the rookie-level Pioneer League and the new Class A South Atlantic League franchise in Lexington, Kentucky. "You'd like to be able to see them all," he said. Moore emphasized that one of the goals of the minor leagues will be to remain a pocketbook-friendly alternative to the major leagues for the next 100 years. "We try to hold down our cost line," said Moore. "We have to keep our costs low to keep the attraction to the families, and we have to find innovative ways to keep the costs down." Minor league baseball reached its post-World War II peak in 1949 when attendance nearly reached the 40 million mark. But just 12 years later, those numbers had fallen below 10 million and hovered around single digits for almost the entire decade before the rise that created what is in place today. Around the beginning of the 1970s, new ballparks began to surface throughout all of baseball. Now, those parks are being replaced and the questions linger. Will communities be able to support new ballparks every 30 years? Will owners be able to shell out the millions of dollars needed to build the latest state-of-the-art facilities to keep the fans coming? Only time will tell.© 2003 SportsTicker Enterprises, LP
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