How Minor League Baseball Revived My Love For The Game

The unthinkable happened. I turned my back on baseball.

I never played organized baseball. I did not want to have little league practice every afternoon and games every Saturday. But I was a devoted Dodger fan, collecting baseball cards in hopes of finding the elusive Steve Garvey card, and watching games while doing homework. I even learned to hate the Yankees who spoiled so many of our championship dreams. In 1985, I finally watched a game in Dodger Stadium while eating a Dodger dog.

As I grew older, my youthful idealism and faith in the game waned. Rumors of performance-enhancing drugs circulated, but few cared because the home run wars were bringing in viewers. Through the ’80s and ’90s, animosity between owners and players and threats of strikes or lockouts overshadowed the games. The commissioner, players, owners, and Congress were arguing, accusing, blaming, and complaining. Like a kid who leaves home to escape fighting parents, I just walked away from the game.

A Slow Walk Back

When my kids were young, a friend who worked at the Hoover Met, a minor league park, would get us free tickets. Like a lukewarm parent taking kids to church because they needed religion, I took our kids to see the Birmingham Barons. I explained the game to them and enjoyed the family time, but I didn’t feel that old passion for the game.

Many years later, Regions Field was built in the heart of Birmingham. A couple of seasons passed before I attended a game there when I was invited by our bank to their corporate box. Then, a few seasons ago, my wife and I had free tickets and sat over left field in the cool April evening.

Something stirred. A sentimental love for the game revived within me. I clearly saw the simple, beautiful game that spring night.

Magic of the Minors

Minor league ball has its own magic. The Birmingham Barons is a farm team for the Chicago White Sox. Winning championships, which the Barons have won, is not the goal; it is player development. We are a stepping stone to the bigs or a trip down for those needing help.

When you sense your place in the world and are content with it, your perspective changes. Players, coaches, and fans are competitive. We want to win. It’s part of the game. But in the minor leagues, winning must yield to the greater good.

I attend games frequently now. Sometimes when my wife and kids have plans, I go alone, often on a whim after work. Entering the stadium I feel both a ten-year-old’s excitement and fifty-something’s contentment. When I can’t attend, I’ll often listen to the sonorous Curt Bloom painting the scene on the radio waves. The game at all levels, from the minor league parks to major league palaces, and its rich history again stirred my heart.

Few American institutions can escape blind competition and the love of money. Owners and players can allow the business to intrude on the game. Cynicism can blind fans to baseball’s existential joy. Politics, personalities, and profits use the game for their purposes. But silence the noise, and you are left with the simplicity and timelessness of the game.

I want the Barons to win games and championships, but my greater desire is a grandstand filled with laughing families, old men keeping box scores, and kids with gloves hoping for a foul ball enjoying this one night. I accepted professional baseball with its weaknesses. I could see its beauty in imperfection that I missed with youthful judgmental eyes. I even loathed the Yankees again.

The last night of the closing series, as the crowds filtered out of the stadium, I lingered then slowly walked to the third base gate. I paused before exiting, turning back for one last look at the lush green outfield framed by the city lights. Baseball was as wonderful as I’d always remembered. Though I would miss it over the winter, in the spring I would return.

I had come home.