HICKORY, North Carolina -- When a player strikes out at the Hickory Crawdads' home of L.P. Frans Stadium, it takes, on average, 21 steps to make it back to the dugout. This bit of esoterica comes courtesy of Christopher "Mega Man" Pack, Crawdads superfan and heckler extraordinaire. He, of all

KODAK, Tennessee -- In his current occupation, Stephen Eason helps people get to their seats. In his former occupation, he helped people get to outer space. It just goes to show, you never know who you might meet at a Minor League Baseball game. Eason, a self-described "good old country

MADISON, Alabama -- Jay Bell has done a lot of things over the course of his long professional baseball career, including scoring the winning run in Game 7 of the World Series as a member of the 2001 Diamondbacks. This season, however, he's doing something that no one in the

A hot dog, beer and a haircut? Fans can obtain all three at Madison, Alabama's Toyota Field, home of the Rocket City Trash Pandas. The brand-new ballpark includes a mobile barbershop on the left field concourse, overseen by local barber and business man Kevin Thomas. Haircuts are available during every

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee -- If you're making your way to the Chattanooga Lookouts' home of AT&T Field, you'll hear Wanda Goins long before you see her. Her voice, lilting yet forceful, rises above the gameday din and carries well beyond the front entrance. The phrasing has changed over the years, but

The Fourth of July is always an important date for Minor League Baseball teams, but this past weekend was extra special. After the cancellation of the 2020 season and a delayed, capacity-restricted start to 2021, this year's festivities represented both a return to normalcy and an opportunity for cathartic celebration.

The mayflies were coming. The St. Paul Saints just didn't know when. "We’re so close to the Mississippi River, and once a year, we get one really bad day," said Erik Franke, field operations manager at the Saints' home of CHS Field. "I wish we could set it on a

When the San Francisco Giants became the first Major League team to take the field wearing Pride colors earlier this month, they were following in the footsteps of their High-A affiliate. That team is the Eugene Emeralds, who, in 2019, wore jerseys featuring a rainbow flag team logo. In doing

A baseball box score beautifully and succinctly tells the story of the game. But there are some things that a box score can't tell you. Take, for instance, what happened during Friday evening's contest between the Low-A Jupiter Hammerheads and visiting St. Lucie Mets. With one out in the bottom

Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, has been observed on June 19 for over 150 years. But now it is a federal holiday. Juneteenth's increased -- and long overdue -- prominence has prompted Minor League teams to stage their own commemorations. Some of these endeavors took

Welcome to Crooked Numbers, a long-running column dedicated to Minor League Baseball on-field anomalies. The column, like everything related to the Minor Leagues, was forced to take a hiatus in 2020. But now is a time for optimism. We're one month into a new season, and it's time to once

Tomorrow, for the first time in 33 months, the Dunedin Blue Jays will play in front of fans at their home ballpark. Like most teams in the Florida-based Low-A Southeast, Dunedin operates out of the Spring Training home of its parent club. They would normally begin their home schedule at

Despite hundreds of years of professional baseball history between the two cities, 2021 marks the first occasion in which Jacksonville and Durham have operated within the same league at the same time. It didn't take long for them to become rivals. Earlier this week, the Jumbo Shrimp and the Bulls,

The Lansing Lugnuts completed their first road trip of the season on Sunday, having split six-game sets against both the Dayton Dragons and Fort Wayne TinCaps. Lugnuts broadcaster Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and his partner, Adam Jaksa, were on the call for all 12 games, narrating every moment of the action. There

Last week, a Wilmington, North Carolina man by the name of Bob Graff visited Beloit, Wisconsin, for the first time. The occasion? To see a game at a Minor League ballpark that had been named in his honor. The Beloit Snappers played their first and only game at Bob Graff's

On Saturday morning, Hudson Valley Renegades director of digital media and video production Zach Neubauer woke up to a troubling reality. The control room computer that serves as the hub for videoboard graphics and video had ceased to function. "Sometimes components go bad. We didn’t have a replacement and it

Last Friday, the Double-A Akron RubberDucks staged "Ken Thompson Appreciation Night." If your response to that is "Who?" then, well, that was the point. Ken Thompson was a randomly selected fan, elevated to celebrity status over the course of nine innings. The Akron native and current resident is a husband,

2020 was a year to forget, but some Minor League teams can't help but remember. On Saturday, a pair of Low-A East clubs held tongue-in-cheek tributes to products that defined American life in 2020. The Carolina Mudcats staged "Hand Sanitizer Appreciation Night," while the Augusta GreenJackets' "Ode to 2020" was

The Sugar Land Skeeters are entering a highly refined new era. Established in 2012 as a member of the independent Atlantic League, the Skeeters are set to embark on their debut season as the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. They are one of three previously independent entities entering the

In 2021 and beyond, 11 of the 12 teams that previously had been part of the Eastern League will operate in the Double-A Northeast League. The lone newcomers are the Somerset Patriots, set to debut as a New York Yankees affiliate.

Entering the 2021 season, the St. Paul Saints find themselves facing a bit of an existential paradox. Have the rebels gone mainstream? After 28 seasons of independent existence, first in the Northern League and then in the American Association, the Saints have signed on to serve as the Triple-A East

Welcome to Batting Around, a long-running compendium of Minor League ballpark news. It's been a while. The previous edition of this column, featuring a roundup of ballparks that had been renamed during the 2019-20 offseason, appeared on this site 364 days ago. The facilities featured in that column have yet

Throughout this extended offseason of 2020-21, Minor League ballparks continually have been utilized for civic-minded purposes. Representative initiatives thus far have included naturalization ceremonies, early voting and COVID-19 testing. On Saturday, the Hartford Yard Goats achieved a significant Minor League Baseball first in this regard, as their home of Dunkin'

The recent passing of Henry Aaron resulted in a wide-scale exploration and celebration of his legendary baseball career. These historical deep dives have led to a greater awareness of and appreciation for those who influenced who him along the way. Ben Geraghty, whom Aaron once said was "the greatest manager

It's been a long offseason, to say the least. As of this writing, the last Minor League Baseball game took place more than 16 months ago. Teams have had to be more creative than usual to stay in the public eye, which has involved finding new ways to maintain relationships