WhistlePigs and $2 beers: Minor league clubs ‘kicked out of baseball’ face uncertain future, liberation in exile

[ThorneStockton]

WhistlePigs and $2 beers: Minor league clubs ‘kicked out of baseball’ face uncertain future, liberation in exile

What becomes of a minor-league team when it gets evicted from the minor leagues? More than 40 teams recently found out.

theathletic.com

On the highway home to Iowa, as he pondered the possibility of his professional extinction, Ted Tornow pulled out his phone. He had six hours to stew as he drove his truck out of Fort Wayne, Ind., after a meeting of class A Midwest League affiliates in the fall of 2019. He choked down a sandwich and vented. He called the head of the ownership group of his team, the Clinton LumberKings. He called a friend who ran a minor-league basketball franchise. He called his wife.

“We just got kicked out of baseball,” Tornow told them.

Tornow, the LumberKings general manager, had known an axe might fall. For months, he heard rumblings about Major League Baseball’s plans to shrink the sprawling minor-league system. There was a list circulating with more than 40 teams set to lose big-league affiliations. Near the end of the meeting in a suite at the Fort Wayne TinCaps ballpark, Minor League Baseball president Pat O’Connor broke the news: Clinton was on the list.

The franchise had resided in Clinton for more than 80 years. Labor funded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration built the ballpark in 1937. Sixteen different big-league affiliates, from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the Miami Marlins, cycled through the city, located in the eastern-most edge of the state, about two and a half hours west of Chicago. Tornow, 61, joined in 1999. “We are so soaked in history, we reek,” he said.

As he cycled through his contacts, he kept hearing the same question.

“Well,” Tornow was asked, “what are you going to do?”

---

On Dec. 9, 2020, Major League Baseball finalized its overhaul of the minor leagues by offering 10-year partnerships to 120 affiliates, four for each big-league team. As a consequence, 43 franchises lost their affiliation. The reasons for the cuts varied. Some pairings — like Miami and Clinton — made little geographic sense. Some franchises lacked facilities which satisfied big-league benefactors. Some leagues expired at the hand of a general thirst for consolidation.

Even in leagues that weren’t eliminated, some franchises found themselves standing alone at a dance with no music. “All of a sudden, we were looking around and going, ‘Hey, who’s our (major-league) partner?’” said Curtis Haug, general manager of the Kane County Cougars, a former A-ball Diamondbacks affiliate in the Midwest League.

Seven franchises ceased operations. The downsizing swept up lower-level leagues in the Appalachians and the Rockies. The New York-Penn League, founded in 1939, ceased to exist. So did the concept of Minor League Baseball as an independent entity — when the Professional Baseball Agreement between the majors and the minors expired in September 2020, Major League Baseball effectively subsumed the governing body of its underlings. MLB’s New York office replaced the MiLB office in St. Petersburg, Fla., as the headquarters of the minors.

The majority of the contracted teams remained in business, dispersed between new leagues for college prospects and established independent groups now granted MLB’s seal as “partner leagues.” Their fates answered a question that sounds more like a brain twister: What becomes of a minor-league team when it gets evicted from the minor leagues?

A portrait of a changing industry emerged in conversations with more than a dozen owners and officials of franchises contracted in late 2020. More than a year after the restructuring, bitterness lingers over a perceived lack of transparency from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s office about the shake-up. Several operators expressed fear that criticizing MLB might damage future relationships with the league. They referenced the power disparity between MLB teams and their affiliates; the 10-year partnerships offered by the big-league club precluded minor-league clubs from suing MLB.

In December, lawyers representing the Staten Island Yankees and three other franchises filed a lawsuit alleging the sport violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and challenging baseball’s anti-trust exemption by defining the contraction as non-competitive behavior. “Virtually no other business in the United States would have even considered such a brazen horizontal agreement among competing businesses,” the lawsuit argues. The U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York has not yet ruled on the filing.

The frustration was not limited to those engaged in litigation.

“I don’t think that when Major League Baseball blew up minor-league baseball that they had a full understanding of how minor-league baseball operated, and a full plan going forward as to how to operate it,” said Jeff Katofsky, owner of the Northern Colorado Owlz, a former rookie-ball Angels affiliate, who said the reorganization cost his franchise millions in value. “Financially, it beat the hell out of us,” he said.

Several officials described a scramble to find new leagues in 2021, undertake a new business model without MLB franchises subsidizing costs, and build rosters without MLB supplying the talent. “We had to fly the plane as we were building it,” said Matt Van Hise, general manager of the Boise Hawks, a former rookie-level Rockies affiliate. Several pronounced themselves stunned at the costs once handled by parent clubs. “It’s around $50,000 a year for bats and balls,” Haug said. “It’s crazy.”

Yet many felt liberated in exile. They praised the MLB officials dispatched by Manfred to expedite the transition. They forged deeper connections with players. They appreciated greater freedom in marketing. Some suggested the quality of play was better than affiliated ball; others reported improved merchandise sales. Many expressed optimism about their future economic prospects. After a canceled season in 2020, the minor-league operators sounded overjoyed that fans welcomed them back and embraced the new normal.

“I’ve been in this business for over 30 years, and last year was one of my favorite years I’ve ever had,” said Matt Ellis, president of the Missoula PaddleHeads, a former Diamondbacks affiliate in the Pioneer League.

Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president for baseball operations, described the contraction as a crucial step toward “a lot of long-overdue improvements to the way the system operates.” He cited “more logical” geographic pairings of big-league teams and affiliates, upgraded facilities, improved accommodations for umpires and the 2021 increase in minor-league salaries (which occurred three years after the commissioner’s office enlisted minor-league franchises to lobby Congress for the “Save America’s Pasttime Act,” which prevented MLB teams from having to pay minor-leaguers the federal minimum wage or overtime).

“It’s been quite an effort to start a whole new system,” Sword said. “I’m becoming convinced that this is the right thing for the game of baseball, and it’s going to result in a lot more stability and longevity in these cities.”

Added Sword, “We’ll be grateful, 10 years from now, that we took those steps.”

What will the minors look like then? Several owners think the reduction to 120 affiliates was only the start. “There is very popular thinking that sooner or later it’s going to be 90 [teams] — if not less,” said Andy Shea, owner of two former members of the defunct South Atlantic League. Added Katofsky, “It wouldn’t shock me, in five years, if it’s 60.”

What happens when a minor-league team gets kicked out of the minors? More teams may find out.

Soon after he returned from Fort Wayne, Tornow received a call from Bill Lee, the commissioner of the Frontier League, an independent confederation of franchises scattered from Quebec to the eastern suburbs of St. Louis. Lee asked the same question everyone was asking: What are you going to do?

“We’re going to fight it,” Tornow said. “But at the end of the day, we’re probably going to get kicked out.”

After the Midwest League meeting, Tornow explained, he felt like Norman Beale in “Network,” mad as hell and not going to take this anymore. So did others in Clinton. Emails flooded the inbox of mayor Scott Maddasion. ”They’re like, ‘You gotta fight hard!’ and I’m like, ‘I will!'” Maddadsion said. Like Tornow, Maddasion felt as if the city had “just got kicked in the shorts by Major League Baseball.” They beseeched Iowa’s elected officials for help. In time, Tornow heard back from his representatives: He could fight. He would lose.

“From a legal standpoint — and I’ve talked to enough lawyers — they said, ‘Yeah, you guys are screwed,’” Tornow said.

When the pandemic descended in 2020, Tornow used loans from the Paycheck Protection Program to stage events at NelsonCorp Field. He pored over the particulars of joining a new league. He considered four options: The indies of the Frontier League and American Association, or the collegiate Northwoods League and Prospect League. Tornow ruled out the indies; the franchise could not afford to pay professional players. Soon he heard from Sword, who was dispatched by Manfred to aid teams like the LumberKings.

A three-way discussion ensued between the LumberKings, the Prospect League and MLB. The Prospect League was “tickled to death” to welcome Clinton, along with the former Angels affiliate in Burlingon, Iowa, to the league, commissioner Dennis Bastien said. The league charged a $250,000 fee for new entrants; MLB paid the tab, representatives from the team, the Prospect League and MLB all said. MLB paid similar fees for other clubs, Sword said.

 

[ThorneStockton]

“We provided significant financial assistance to all those clubs in finding their new path,” Sword said.

Some minor-league operators suggested these payouts stemmed less from benevolence and more as an enticement to avoid litigation. Not every club found an immediate home. A team in Staten Island, under new ownership, will join the Atlantic League in 2022, as will a team in Hagerstown, Md., a former Nationals class-A affiliate, in 2023. Jackson, Tenn., a former Diamondbacks Double-A affiliate, will join the Prospect League in 2023, Bastien said.

The Red Sox have engaged with Lowell, Mass., home of their former class-A affiliate, about bringing baseball back to the city. Dave Heller, the owner of the Lowell Spinners in addition to two High-A teams and a Pioneer League franchise, said he was not involved in those discussions; he declined further comment. Atlantic League president Rick White said he had talked with Heller about joining the partner league, but indicated the city was “still holding out some hope for an affiliated team.” The Red Sox own their Low-A affiliate in Salem, Va., and could eventually move that team to Lowell.

In the Rocky Mountains, the rookie-level Pioneer League became an MLB “partner” like the American Association, Atlantic League and Frontier League — a waystation for pro players working back toward affiliated ball. The Appalachian League — with 10 teams previously owned by parent clubs — converted to a summer league for collegians. MLB assembled an MLB Draft League with castoffs from the New York-Penn League, Carolina League and Eastern League.

As Tornow did with Clinton, many teams swapped out low-level professionals for middle-tier college players. Several executives indicated there was not a significant difference in the quality of play. Some teams still heard feedback from frustrated fans. The Frederick Keys spent more than 20 seasons as an A-ball affiliate less than an hour away from the Orioles. In 2021, the Keys joined the MLB Draft League.

“Some people were just happy to have baseball,” Keys general manager Andrew Klein said. “But there were some people who were pretty upset that we were not the Orioles, and they weren’t seeing Adley Rutschman or any of those future prospects who in 2020 we were told were headed our way.”

For teams still employing professional players, the changes were more subtle. One night in May, a catcher for Boise Hawks of the Pioneer League broke his ankle. In an earlier era, the injury would have been handled by Rockies officials. Now it fell to Van Hise, the general manager, and manager Gary Van Tol. Van Hise coordinated the treatment with a local hospital, filed the worker’s comp paperwork to keep the player paid and contacted Pioneer officials to formalize the terms of a league-wide injured list. Van Tol, a Northwest baseball fixture, mined connections for a new backstop. The autonomy thrilled Van Hise, who has spent nearly two decades in the game. “I had more fun this season than really any other season before,” he said.

In Lexington, Ky., the Legends had spent eight years as a class-A extension of the Royals. In 2021, after joining the Atlantic League, the club stuffed its roster with former Reds and locals with big-league time. Shea, the Legends owner, said the difference between the prospects of the affiliated past and the veterans of the independent present — even those no longer competing in the majors — was notable.

“If someone out there tells you,” Shea said, “that they would rather see some random 19-year-old that’s in the Kansas City Royals system over Ben Revere or Brandon Phillips playing, they are lying to you.”

During the summer of 2021, as the LumberKings embraced a new reality, a common conversation topic arose when Tornow talked to Tad Lowary, his counterpart with the Burlington Bees: Are your food bills out of control?

“These kids eat like they’re locusts going through a wheat field,” Tornow said.

Tornow strove to not slip beneath the standards set as an affiliate, and he wanted to bolster the team’s reputation for future players. So the pregame spread in both clubhouses still included fresh fruit and granola bars, and the post-game meals were catered from local restaurants. In all, the grocery bill for the season totaled about $45,000 — an expense that used to be paid by the parent club, Tornow said.

For teams like the LumberKings, the business model had changed. In the past, MLB teams covered the salaries of players, coaches and trainers, plus equipment and other expenses like food. The main expense for minor-league operators involved travel. Now the unaffiliated clubs absorbed these new costs.

Haug, the general manager in Kane County, said his expenses bill jumped from $150,000 to $700,000 as the team moved to the professional American Association. The costs were defrayed by the departure of other expenses, like the eight percent of ticket revenue MLB reaped as a tax from every minor-league club.

Several executives appreciated the freedom to market the team and its players without seeking permission from a parent club. In Lexington, the Legends sold merchandise bearing the name of former big-leaguers like Phillips and Revere. A local telecom company sponsored the foul poles at Legends Ballpark and had them painted green. “I don’t know if that’s possible in affiliated these days,” Shea said.

Cut loose from the majors, the Appalachian League rebranded. In Princeton, W.V., the Rays became the WhistlePigs. “It was surprising and exciting to see people come into your stadium with the WhistlePigs gear on,” Princeton general manager Danny Shingleton said. Added Chris Allen, the president of Boyd Sports, which owns four teams in the league, “We sold more merchandise this year than we had ever sold with any team before that in the Appalachian League.”

Boyd Sports also owns the Tennessee Smokies, the Double-A affiliate of the Cubs. Allen estimated that the Smokies is “probably 80 percent of our business.” The margins for the lower-level clubs are thin. Boyd measures its four Appalachian League teams, all located in northwest Tennessee, as one economic entity. In a good year, Allen estimated, the quartet combines for a $300,000 profit.

“We had an amazing year in the Appy League on the financial side of things — relatively speaking,” Allen said. “We’re not getting rich down there.”

---

Curtis Haug attended the same Midwest League meeting as Ted Tornow in the fall of 2019. Unlike Tornow, Haug did not drive fuming out of Fort Wayne. The Kane County Cougars were not on the initial list of teams expected to get cut, Haug recalled. Situated in Geneva, Ill., a bedroom community of Chicago, with access to two major airports and a stadium capable of holding nearly 11,000 fans, he assumed his club was safe.

“We never in the world thought we would be contracted,” Haug said.

He was wrong. The Diamondbacks opted for A-ball partners in California and Oregon. The Cougars never found a match. The outcome shocked Haug. But it has not deterred the club’s interest in partnering with a new big-league team, if one of the affiliates falls out of favor. Each of the 120 partnership agreements included a mandate to meet MLB’s facility specifications by Opening Day 2023. “Those standards cover every area of a ballpark that a player or coach would touch,” Sword said, from modernized clubhouses to improved lighting to proper parking lot security.

Some of the former affiliates wonder if all 120 teams will pay the cost to meet those standards.

“We want to be ready,” Haug said. “That’s something that’s at the top of our list. We’ll do whatever we can to make that happen, if the opportunity presents itself.”

Other executives sounded cool toward the idea of a reunion. Shea pronounced himself pleased with life on the indies; White, the Atlantic League president, called his league “very fortunate” to add Shea’s clubs in Lexington and Charleston, W.Va. Allen suggested the towns dotting the Appalachian League would need to band together to support a lone class-A affiliate. “You can’t put pro teams in all these markets and expect these tiny communities to support all these teams,” Allen said.

Katofsky, an owner in the Pioneer League, suggested a hybrid partnership. The big-league teams could farm out a pool of players to prevent overcrowding at spring-training complexes during the summer. “All of baseball would be better if there is a re-affiliation between the short-season and lower-level leagues and Major League Baseball again,” Katofsky said.

Ted Tornow used to feel the same way.

“At the time, I’m like ‘Man, I’d give my left nut to be back in there,’” Tornow said. “But now? Forget it. You’re not touching my gonads, man!”

The LumberKings did “very well financially” in 2021, Tornow said. Clinton led the Prospect League in attendance, with its per-game average rising from 1,800 in 2019 to 2,300. The number of games dropped from 70 to 30, but Tornow indicated the club did not miss the chilly, lightly-attended games in April and May. The team did not have to pay for the facility upgrades required to retain an affiliation. Near the season, Tornow met with his board of directors. “Had we been with the 120,” he said, “we would probably be bankrupt right now.”

The home finale of the LumberKings season coincided with a regular promotion, $2 Tuesday: $2 tickets, $2 beers, $2 hot dogs. The weather was a 70-degree dream. Tornow told his staff to expect about 2,000 fans. Twice as many showed up, he said. Lines swelled at the concessions. He recruited board members to run registers. Tornow joined the fray.

“I’m in the back, rolling hot dogs and changing kegs of beer, all the while laughing my ass off,” Tornow said. “‘Oh my God! This is crazy.’ It was one of the most enjoyable nights of my life.”

 

[JMSBFD]

“We provided significant financial assistance to all those clubs in finding their new path,” Sword said.

Some minor-league operators suggested these payouts stemmed less from benevolence and more as an enticement to avoid litigation. Not every club found an immediate home. A team in Staten Island, under new ownership, will join the Atlantic League in 2022, as will a team in Hagerstown, Md., a former Nationals class-A affiliate, in 2023. Jackson, Tenn., a former Diamondbacks Double-A affiliate, will join the Prospect League in 2023, Bastien said.

The Red Sox have engaged with Lowell, Mass., home of their former class-A affiliate, about bringing baseball back to the city. Dave Heller, the owner of the Lowell Spinners in addition to two High-A teams and a Pioneer League franchise, said he was not involved in those discussions; he declined further comment. Atlantic League president Rick White said he had talked with Heller about joining the partner league, but indicated the city was “still holding out some hope for an affiliated team.” The Red Sox own their Low-A affiliate in Salem, Va., and could eventually move that team to Lowell.

In the Rocky Mountains, the rookie-level Pioneer League became an MLB “partner” like the American Association, Atlantic League and Frontier League — a waystation for pro players working back toward affiliated ball. The Appalachian League — with 10 teams previously owned by parent clubs — converted to a summer league for collegians. MLB assembled an MLB Draft League with castoffs from the New York-Penn League, Carolina League and Eastern League.

As Tornow did with Clinton, many teams swapped out low-level professionals for middle-tier college players. Several executives indicated there was not a significant difference in the quality of play. Some teams still heard feedback from frustrated fans. The Frederick Keys spent more than 20 seasons as an A-ball affiliate less than an hour away from the Orioles. In 2021, the Keys joined the MLB Draft League.

“Some people were just happy to have baseball,” Keys general manager Andrew Klein said. “But there were some people who were pretty upset that we were not the Orioles, and they weren’t seeing Adley Rutschman or any of those future prospects who in 2020 we were told were headed our way.”

For teams still employing professional players, the changes were more subtle. One night in May, a catcher for Boise Hawks of the Pioneer League broke his ankle. In an earlier era, the injury would have been handled by Rockies officials. Now it fell to Van Hise, the general manager, and manager Gary Van Tol. Van Hise coordinated the treatment with a local hospital, filed the worker’s comp paperwork to keep the player paid and contacted Pioneer officials to formalize the terms of a league-wide injured list. Van Tol, a Northwest baseball fixture, mined connections for a new backstop. The autonomy thrilled Van Hise, who has spent nearly two decades in the game. “I had more fun this season than really any other season before,” he said.

In Lexington, Ky., the Legends had spent eight years as a class-A extension of the Royals. In 2021, after joining the Atlantic League, the club stuffed its roster with former Reds and locals with big-league time. Shea, the Legends owner, said the difference between the prospects of the affiliated past and the veterans of the independent present — even those no longer competing in the majors — was notable.

“If someone out there tells you,” Shea said, “that they would rather see some random 19-year-old that’s in the Kansas City Royals system over Ben Revere or Brandon Phillips playing, they are lying to you.”

During the summer of 2021, as the LumberKings embraced a new reality, a common conversation topic arose when Tornow talked to Tad Lowary, his counterpart with the Burlington Bees: Are your food bills out of control?

“These kids eat like they’re locusts going through a wheat field,” Tornow said.

Tornow strove to not slip beneath the standards set as an affiliate, and he wanted to bolster the team’s reputation for future players. So the pregame spread in both clubhouses still included fresh fruit and granola bars, and the post-game meals were catered from local restaurants. In all, the grocery bill for the season totaled about $45,000 — an expense that used to be paid by the parent club, Tornow said.

For teams like the LumberKings, the business model had changed. In the past, MLB teams covered the salaries of players, coaches and trainers, plus equipment and other expenses like food. The main expense for minor-league operators involved travel. Now the unaffiliated clubs absorbed these new costs.

Haug, the general manager in Kane County, said his expenses bill jumped from $150,000 to $700,000 as the team moved to the professional American Association. The costs were defrayed by the departure of other expenses, like the eight percent of ticket revenue MLB reaped as a tax from every minor-league club.

Several executives appreciated the freedom to market the team and its players without seeking permission from a parent club. In Lexington, the Legends sold merchandise bearing the name of former big-leaguers like Phillips and Revere. A local telecom company sponsored the foul poles at Legends Ballpark and had them painted green. “I don’t know if that’s possible in affiliated these days,” Shea said.

Cut loose from the majors, the Appalachian League rebranded. In Princeton, W.V., the Rays became the WhistlePigs. “It was surprising and exciting to see people come into your stadium with the WhistlePigs gear on,” Princeton general manager Danny Shingleton said. Added Chris Allen, the president of Boyd Sports, which owns four teams in the league, “We sold more merchandise this year than we had ever sold with any team before that in the Appalachian League.”

Boyd Sports also owns the Tennessee Smokies, the Double-A affiliate of the Cubs. Allen estimated that the Smokies is “probably 80 percent of our business.” The margins for the lower-level clubs are thin. Boyd measures its four Appalachian League teams, all located in northwest Tennessee, as one economic entity. In a good year, Allen estimated, the quartet combines for a $300,000 profit.

“We had an amazing year in the Appy League on the financial side of things — relatively speaking,” Allen said. “We’re not getting rich down there.”

---

Curtis Haug attended the same Midwest League meeting as Ted Tornow in the fall of 2019. Unlike Tornow, Haug did not drive fuming out of Fort Wayne. The Kane County Cougars were not on the initial list of teams expected to get cut, Haug recalled. Situated in Geneva, Ill., a bedroom community of Chicago, with access to two major airports and a stadium capable of holding nearly 11,000 fans, he assumed his club was safe.

“We never in the world thought we would be contracted,” Haug said.

He was wrong. The Diamondbacks opted for A-ball partners in California and Oregon. The Cougars never found a match. The outcome shocked Haug. But it has not deterred the club’s interest in partnering with a new big-league team, if one of the affiliates falls out of favor. Each of the 120 partnership agreements included a mandate to meet MLB’s facility specifications by Opening Day 2023. “Those standards cover every area of a ballpark that a player or coach would touch,” Sword said, from modernized clubhouses to improved lighting to proper parking lot security.

Some of the former affiliates wonder if all 120 teams will pay the cost to meet those standards.

“We want to be ready,” Haug said. “That’s something that’s at the top of our list. We’ll do whatever we can to make that happen, if the opportunity presents itself.”

Other executives sounded cool toward the idea of a reunion. Shea pronounced himself pleased with life on the indies; White, the Atlantic League president, called his league “very fortunate” to add Shea’s clubs in Lexington and Charleston, W.Va. Allen suggested the towns dotting the Appalachian League would need to band together to support a lone class-A affiliate. “You can’t put pro teams in all these markets and expect these tiny communities to support all these teams,” Allen said.

Katofsky, an owner in the Pioneer League, suggested a hybrid partnership. The big-league teams could farm out a pool of players to prevent overcrowding at spring-training complexes during the summer. “All of baseball would be better if there is a re-affiliation between the short-season and lower-level leagues and Major League Baseball again,” Katofsky said.

Ted Tornow used to feel the same way.

“At the time, I’m like ‘Man, I’d give my left nut to be back in there,’” Tornow said. “But now? Forget it. You’re not touching my gonads, man!”

The LumberKings did “very well financially” in 2021, Tornow said. Clinton led the Prospect League in attendance, with its per-game average rising from 1,800 in 2019 to 2,300. The number of games dropped from 70 to 30, but Tornow indicated the club did not miss the chilly, lightly-attended games in April and May. The team did not have to pay for the facility upgrades required to retain an affiliation. Near the season, Tornow met with his board of directors. “Had we been with the 120,” he said, “we would probably be bankrupt right now.”

The home finale of the LumberKings season coincided with a regular promotion, $2 Tuesday: $2 tickets, $2 beers, $2 hot dogs. The weather was a 70-degree dream. Tornow told his staff to expect about 2,000 fans. Twice as many showed up, he said. Lines swelled at the concessions. He recruited board members to run registers. Tornow joined the fray.

“I’m in the back, rolling hot dogs and changing kegs of beer, all the while laughing my ass off,” Tornow said. “‘Oh my God! This is crazy.’ It was one of the most enjoyable nights of my life.”

Good read.

 

[DFSNOLE]

I'm still trying to figure out what my favorite rye whiskey has to do with this.

 

[HawCory]

I'm still trying to figure out what my favorite rye whiskey has to do with this.

I'll bet you were pretty excited opening this thread up. Sorry, man.