A Salute to Minors, Part # 1

I thought since I was going to Syracuse this weekend for an outdoor concert at Tex Simone Stadium in downtown Syracuse, New York that I would do a short piece on the minors.
Then it started to get longer and turned into a 2 parter.

Syracuse of course had been for the Jays their Triple AAA affiliate, and many of the young players made their way through he same gates and played on that field as I will be, but Jays parted ways and now have their Triple AAA team in Las Vegas, or Lost Wages, Nevada.

I watched 2 games there in 2004 as they played the Columbus Clippers ( the Yankee affiliate in the International League ), and we lost both games, but what struck me was the amount of promos, and events, and inter action with the crowds by the players before and after the game. T-shirts being bazooked into the stands, free car washes, restaurant vouchers, and generally as many of the local Syracuse businesses as could fit on the scoreboard. The Yanks have moved out of Columbus to Scranton, and so their tradition with Columbus has also ended, as they have moved to the old Phillies Triple AAA affiliate.

Frozen fans brave the outdoors in Triple AAA stadiums, metal seats, cold coffee, but turn out in droves for their local heroes.

Oh yeah, these places do not have dome or covered stadiums, and they do not like rain outs, snow outs, or bug outs, and fog outs. But what they have is real fans.


Below is Tex Simone Stadium in Syracuse, and Part Two is coming very soon, but it's dinner time, and the burgers on the grill! Enjoy !