Minor league baseball

As a nonbaseball fan, I have nevertheless attended more games than most people, and these have usually involved the Chicago Cubs or White Sox. Having personally known one player and hosted another at our family home in my youth, I had major league baseball as a part of my life for some years.

I do not recall ever attending a minor league game. Back in 1991 I did attend an exhibition game between a visiting Soviet (yes, Soviet, for a few more months!) team from Tiraspol and a local team from Geneva, Illinois. Around that time I learned that the ball park we were visiting would soon host a minor league team moving from Wisconsin. This became the Kane County Cougars, now a class A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. At the time I thought the team should be called the Geneva Psalms, but obviously nothing came of that.

As far as I know, there is but one minor league team in Canada, the Vancouver Canadians. Even our own Toronto Blue Jays has farm teams only in the US and the Dominican Republic. The closest such team to us is the Buffalo Bisons, an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, whose name and mascot have been a source of controversy in recent years.

There. Got that out of my system. This is probably my last post on baseball for another few years. Baseball fans should check back here in, say, 2013.