Big-League Baseball Loses Its Charm

Major-league baseball is back at last, but pardon me if I don’t rush to the TV set to see it.

Compared with that video image, we have a real team in my town, one I actually can go out and see in person. For a number of reasons, I’ve come to prefer it over the big-leaguers’ version.

Baseball became the national pastime because it represented things Americans admired - reliability, dedication, manliness, sacrifice, living by the rules, etc. It was the game your daddy took you to see. Those are things that inspire loyalty.

But who can admire guys who charge $10 for autographs even though they make more than $1 million a year? Does an owner deserve loyalty who instantly will move his team to another town if it means a few more bucks? Can you count on there being a game at the ballpark or on television when major-leaguers have gone on strike eight times?

These days, my loyalty goes to the minor leagues - specifically, the Arkansas Travelers of the Texas League, one of 19 surviving from the all-time high of 59 minor leagues in America in 1949.

These kids earn only about $7,500 a season and give the fans everything they’ve got. They’ve been doing it since 1901 in Little Rock.

Besides, minor-league baseball is simply more interesting, as proved by Guinness.

For example, the longest baseball game (33 innings, eight hours and 25 minutes) was played between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings of the International League during the 1981 major-league players’ strike.

The most home runs (72) in a season are attributed to a minor-leaguer. The same for the longest throw (445 feet, 10 inches), the only no-hit doubleheader (roommate pitchers for the Rocky Mount Leafs in the Carolina League), the fastest man to circle the bases (13.3 seconds in Columbus, Ohio), the only unassisted triple play by an outfielder (Walter Carlisle in the Pacific Coast League), a no-hit game won when the pitcher struck out 27 batters (Ron Necciai of the Appalachian League), the longest consecutive hitting streak (67 games), etc.

One of these records was set by an Arkansas Traveler, Lew Flick, who got nine consecutive base hits in a 19-inning first game of a doubleheader in 1946 and then went three for three in the second game.

Traveler pitcher Rube Robinson won more games (208) and pitched more innings (3,128) than any other pitcher in the old Southern Association and possibly in any other minor league. Robinson was born 50 miles from Little Rock near Searcy, and his real name was John Henry Roberson. A Pittsburgh sportswriter changed it, and Robinson used the moniker the rest of his career.

Pittsburgh called him up shortly after he had started with the Travelers, and he wound up as a St. Louis Cardinal. However, Robinson couldn’t get along with Miller Huggins, the manager, and in 1916 - as unbelievable as it sounds today - he insisted on being sent back to Little Rock, where he stayed for 13 seasons.

Robinson wanted to be close to home and live like and with ordinary people. During the off-season, he worked for the state highway department.

In those days, there was no major-league pension plan, and the difference in salary between an ordinary pitcher in the majors and a star in the minors was slight.

Back then, most players loved baseball so much they would have played for free. Now, you’ll find them only in the minors.

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