MLB to Small Town America: Drop Dead

After the Red Wave left for Adelanto, they moved another Cal League team (don't remember from which city) to Riverside and it was renamed the Pilots. That's the Mariners farm team Chris was referring to. I saw one Pilots game when some friends and I drove up to Anaheim for an Angels day game and then caught the Riverside game that night on the way back to San Diego. That team lasted a couple years, I think, and then moved to Lancaster.

 

I definitely wouldn't choose that route that time of day, but it's not unrealistic.

 

Um, because we were baseball fans? We made plans to see a weekday game in Anaheim and thought it would be cool to catch a minor-league game that night and Riverside was playing Palm Springs (the Angels' farm team, so that was of interest to me) that night.
Angel game was over about 3:00-3:30 and I don't remember the 91 being worse than usual (we missed the after-work rush), we grabbed some pizza and chicken at a local Shakey's beforehand and took in the game.
Another funny thing was that as we were heading to the ballpark in Riverside, we were listening to the Dodger game on the radio (they were in Philadelphia) and it was around the sixth inning when we got out of the car. We saw the game and got in the car afterward, and the radio still had the game on. We thought maybe it was a replay, but nope the Dodgers and Phillies were still playing and it was about the 16th inning.

 

Bradenton has it worse as they are closer to all their cross-division opponents (with the exception of Daytona) in the FSL than it is to their closest division opponent (Fort Myers), which is 90 miles away. The rest of their division opponents (Port St. Lucie, Jupiter and Palm Beach) are all 155+ miles away.

 

I think you mean the Midwest League going to High A. The Northwest League is going for undrafteds or college wood-bat league or something. EDIT: Never mind that's the Pioneer League. Sorry. Honestly, I don't know. Maybe they were concerned about cutting off the entire Northwest quadrant of the country?

IIRC, the Cal League covers mostly West Coast teams. The bigger reason is probably the Florida State League and its teams at the same level. I believe the attendance for them was terrible (and can you blame them, hosting athletic events outside in Florida in July) and schedules subject to large-scale wipeouts due to rain.

The Midwest League was already full-season to begin with (and honestly has a lot of good, interesting little arrangements in places like Appleton, Grand Rapids, Mich., Midland, Mich., etc.), so it's not like those crappy April nights in Cedar Rapids are all that new.

 

Nope. Northwest is long season A. And being referred to as "High A" while California is now "Low A" Now teams may put better prospects in one long A or another, since most usually have two A affiliates. It might all be moot anyhow as teams will likely adjust which prospects go where based on what they want to evaluate and the talent they want them to face.

 

Some leagues are easy to figure, others ... not so much.

Northwest refugees Everett, Eugene, Hillsboro, Tri-City and Vancouver, for example, are now High-A.

 

It’s pretty easy for teams to move players between Low A and the rookie leagues now since they are all in the same location
Erie escaped from the chopping block thanks to stadium improvements funded before the proposed cutback

 

Pizza and potatoes. Who knew?