Minor League Memories

As many of you know, in addition to music, one of my other great loves in life is baseball, especially minor league baseball (and no, that’s not a joke about the fact that I’m a lifelong Mets fan).

While perusing eBay one evening I stumbled upon some wax boxes of 1991 Classic Best minor league baseball cards. 1991 happened to be the year I started attending minor league games with my dad. Spurred by the desire to relive some memories, and have some fun opening up packs of cards, I purchased a box.

It would turn out to be an amazing buy.

Here are some of the minor league memories the cards sparked.



Greg Blosser and Freddie Davis Jr.
The first minor league games I attended were up in New Britain, CT, at Beehive Field, home of the New Britain Red Sox. The NebSox were the AA affiliate of the Red Sox, and Beehive Field – with its massive wall in center field that in addition to being around 15 to 20 feet high, was also 410 feet from home plate – was a ballpark where home runs went to die. It was also a ballpark that had a giant Marlboro Man behind left center. Let’s just say times were different back then.

April 28th, 1991 was the first time I stepped into those stands with my dad, and while we had attended a number of games at Shea Stadium over the years, this was a whole new world. Everything was SO CLOSE, and kids were encouraged to walk down to the first row of the stands and get autographs from the players who were all eagerly signing hats, balls, programs, and baseball cards.

This was a dream come true.

This is also why I maintain if you want a kid to develop a lifelong love of baseball, take them to a minor league game.


On that day both Greg Blosser, and Freddie Davis Jr. were in uniform.


Just seeing the classic NB on their hats takes me back to those games.




Jim Thome
We went back to Beehive Field in July of ’91 with a family friend to see the NebSox take on the Canton-Akron Indians. There was a young player in the Indians lineup that day named Jim Thome. You may have heard of him. He now has a plaque in Cooperstown.

Thome getting called up, and becoming a star, was so cool to us. The previous year the NebSox had future hall of famer Jeff Bagwell, but Thome was the first future hall of famer we actually saw.


Thome wasn’t, however, the only player we saw go from AA to the pros. There’s a long list of those, and it’s still growing.

This is another aspect of attending minor league games that I’ve always loved – there’s a legit chance someone you see will end up making the majors at some point, and you get to say you saw them way back when.

Speaking of which, while Thome would end up the hall of famer, on that particular day we were actually far more enamored with a player named Carlos Martinez. Carlos had over 200 MLB games under his belt, and wasn’t all that thrilled to be in AA. The Indians weren’t doing him any favors by playing him out of position, and in addition to a fielding faux pas, Martinez managed to make one of the worst slides into second – it was pretty much a bellyflop – on a steal attempt that actually came on ball four (so he had the bag anyway), that totally made the crowd’s day.

We all shouted, “Slide, Carlos, slide!” and I’m still convinced he was glaring directly at me later that inning as he stood on the bag at third.

This is an actual press photo I found of the late, great Carlos Martinez. Apparently he never really got the hang of the stolen base.


Of course, baseball historians know Carlos for hitting what might be the greatest home run of all-time, as he was the one who hit the ball that bounced off of Jose Canseco’s head, and over the wall.





Garret Anderson
In the summer of ’92 we took a family vacation to Palm Springs, CA, which at the time was the home of the Palm Springs Angels, the A affiliate of the then California Angels, now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (yep, that still just rolls right off the tongue. Great name change, guys, Also, to put that date in perspective, Mike Trout turned one that year).

The team played at Palm Springs Stadium. I have a number of memories of this stadium …

* It was equipped with vegetable misters to keep fans cool (those of us with glasses were thankful for our hats).

* The fixins area for hot dogs included jalapeños.

* Their promotions included giving a free car wash to the dirtiest car in the lot, and seeing if a fan could accurately toss a bag of unused tickets into a bucket.


Then there were the players. Just like in New Britain they were eager to sign autographs, and just like in New Britain a few of them would ultimately reach the majors. The Palm Springs Angels had both Eduardo Perez, and Garrett Anderson on their roster, and it was awesome to see them end up in the pros, and to see Anderson become an all-star (that year the Palm Springs Angels also had Troy Percival, but he may have been promoted to AA by the time we attended games).




Keith Kimberlin
Who is Keith Kimberlin? That’s actually a really good question. If you look him up you’ll find he only played a handful of seasons in the minors, with a 20 game stint with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons – the AAA affiliate of the Phillies – being the highest level of ball he played. He also attempted to become a replacement player for the Oaklands A’s during spring training in 1995 when it was thought the 1994 player strike might last into the ’95 season. It didn’t, and Kimberlin never had a major league at-bat as far as I can tell.

So why did this card mean so much to me when I pulled it from a pack? Because in 1993, my seventh year of attending baseball games, a ball was hit that bounced off some folks behind us, and on the carom (and after another bounce) ended up in our hands. That ball was hit by then Reading Phillies player Keith Kimberlin.


To this day it remains the only batted ball I’ve ever caught (and yes, I realize I’m using the word “caught” pretty liberally here being that it was technically off of someone else, and corralled by another member of our party), and I keep it in a display case on a bookshelf in my bedroom.


I still attend minor league games every year.

The team in New Britain became the Rock Cats, and went from being the Red Sox AA affiliate to being the Twins AA affiliate. After many years the Rock Cats switched parent organizations again, and became the Rockies AA affiliate (which is wild when I think about how my first New Britain game was two years before the Colorado Rockies existed). A few years ago the team moved to Hartford, and they are now the Hartford Yard Goats. Not to sound like too much of a homer, but a day at a Yard Goats game is one of the best baseball experiences you can have.


If there’s a minor league team near you I highly encourage you to go to a game (if I’m around, take me!). You never know, you may end up seeing a future hall of famer. At the very least, you’ll make some fantastic memories.