MLB to Small Town America: Drop Dead

That's part of what made it fun, but I get it.

Although, I don't know if there was a worse So Cal ball park than Bakersfield's where they scheduled all of their games for kind of late because the setting sun made it impossible to see some nights.

 

Bakersfield was always the least preferred High-A destination for any Major League team. I remember when the Reds had a team in Lynchburg that the Cincy brass did everything in their power to get out of Bakersfield and into the Florida State League. Not only was the ballpark terrible but there was always an east coast team that got stuck there, making moving players between low and high A really tough.

 

I went to Bakersfield to cover Orel Hershiser’s first rehab start. Couldn’t believe the place. It was held together with spider webs and termite shit. And sunset was in dead centerfield. The owner was a druggist from Santa Monica who made millions ripping off the elderly on prescriptions but he knew who I was and gave me the run of the place.
Also, a friend of mine was a Manager in that league. He refused to let his team play because of the sun in center field. The ump told him that he had 5 minutes to send up the first batter or they forfeited. My friend waited for 4:59 then sent up his lead off batter.

 

It wasn't because they were in Adelanto, where I'm sure the plot of Breaking Bad was hatched?

 

The Cal League will be unbalanced now with three teams in the Inland Empire and everyone else in the central or northern part of the state. Someone is always going to be far from home.

With Lake Elsinore (Padres), Inland Empire, which is in San Bernardino, (Angels) and Rancho Cucamonga (Dodgers) there are a lot of opportunities for fans in the IE to see rehabbing MLB players. All three are nice ballparks too.

 

Maybe 15 years ago my wife and I were on a flight. There was an older guy chatting up a pretty younger women and he was talking about baseball. I noticed he had a World Series ring from the 1990 Reds and we eventually started talking. It turns out he had been a scout or minor league official, I don't remember, and was now part of the ownership group of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. He also drove the bus on road trips. He invited us to a game and we called the office to have him leave tickets.

They weren't at the box office when we got there, but we dropped his name and they took care of us. We sat in his "box" which was really just an area down the right field line. He even encouraged my wife and me to participate in a wheelbarrow race between innings.

What a fun night.

 

So Fresno and Visalia are 44 miles apart but in different divisions. I'm guessing the CalLoop creates a heavily unbalanced schedule to keep the three IE teams from lovely Highway 99.

 

And Daytona Beach's closest rival in the FSL is ... Lakeland, which is 110 miles each way. They're more than 150 miles from Port St. Lucie and Clearwater, and more than 200 miles from Fort Myers. Well, that's low A for you.