In Praise of Minor League Baseball

Two nights ago, I took my son and older daughter to see a AAA game at Coca-Cola Park here in Allentown. The local team, the tragically named Iron Pigs, lost to the Syracuse Chiefs, 3-2. But I didn’t care about the outcome. It was a beautiful night in a beautiful park, and we got to see a mostly well-played game. 

The kids at first were disappointed that we weren’t going to get to see real major-leaguers; they’d heard that the Iron Pigs are affiliated with the Phillies, and somehow got the impression the Phillies were coming up here to the Lehigh Valley to play a game. 

So I had to explain the difference between major- and minor-league ball, which is surprisingly difficult to do. I started out with some simple math: If we estimate that there are 900 major leaguers (30 teams times 30 players,…

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