The New Ball Game
The New Ball Game (Produced & directed by Steve Holmes, 2001) This award-winning gem captures the soul and the economics of minor league baseball through its roller coaster ride of past generations. Steve Holmes, a passionate minor league fan, provides a gut-wrenching insider’s view of how minor league baseball has survived what Joseph Schumpeter calls “creative destruction.”
Minor league baseball has experienced glory years of independence, major league affiliations commencing in the 1920s, the body blow from TV in the 1950s and subsequently, and a series of ups and mostly downs that might destroy a less resilient, community-based national past time. Perhaps the biggest long-time challenge to the survival of minor league baseball has been national demographics: as farming communities declined and urban and suburban areas exploded, the core traditional geography of minor league baseball was eroded.
Mr. Holmes, with commentary from baseball great Paul Molitor, baseball personality Bob Uecker, and dozens of folks associated with “the game,” has crafted an extraordinary story of how minor league baseball has survived and, in recent years, seems to be flourishing. It has been a tough slog in which, often, the players seem to be secondary to the economics of survival.
Some Hall of Famers got their start in minor league baseball, and the minors remain a starting point for those fortunate few who make it to the major leagues. For the great majority, starting at $850/month is a path to, at best, a few seasons of cut-rate accommodations, playing under less-than-ideal conditions, then finding some other employment. They are driven by the joy of the game and the possibility of a chance at the majors.
Mr. Holmes tells the astonishing story of how, team by team, a mix of businessmen, who are often in it for the game rather than the slim prospect of profit, and communities continue to breath new life into the ever-changing minor leagues.
One minor league team boasts a 111-year heritage. Others have more sporadic records, with changes in location, names, and, all too often, extinction. Of course the same could be said of the major league. I recall when there were the American and National leagues, with eight teams in each. New York had three teams, Philadelphia and Boston two. Only a genealogist could accurately trace the antecedents of many of the current 30 major league teams.
The story of how local communities have, in extremely innovative ways, retained local minor league teams is a tribute to American ingenuity and entrepreneurship. At best, minor league baseball often is a high-risk business venture. The requirements imposed by Major League teams, together with escalating operating costs, make it even riskier.
A combination of Field of Dreams, the importance of a minor league baseball team to a sense of community, and outrageous promotions that render games more a community and family happening than a sporting event contributes to the current resurgence of minor league baseball.
Whether you are a baseball fan or intrigued by how Americans react innovatively to “creative destruction,” this is a must-see documentary. And, like me, it might inspire you to take your family out to see a local team. My college president threw out the first pitch at a Somerset Patriots game last week. It was a wonderful evening, though I can’t recall who the Patriots played.
