Both the homestanding Salem Red Sox and the visiting Fredericksburg Nats have red jerseys and tonight both teams chose to wear them for their series opening 7:05 contest.
It could be worse though if it was basketball season instead of baseball ⚾️ but it did look odd just the same.
Salem scored the games first run in the bottom of the second in a manner that had a little league feel to it as a runner reached first base on an error and moved up a bag on three separate wild pitches.
9:16 p.m. – 7th inning stretch has the teams knotted at 3-3.
The baby Green Monster getting plenty of action tonight.
It turns out that we need to add four teams to our total as the Tidewater Collegiate Summer Baseball League has been playing games for over 70 years. This league has a couple of rather unique twists in that all games are played nightly on four fields within a few miles of each other and any players that are not local are housed in Beautiful Virginia Beach.
Not a bad place to spend your Summer while trying to improve your game !
4 in Tidewater, 4 in Richmond, 3 in the Coastal Plains, 4 in the Appalachian League and 2 in the Cal Ripen League in addition to the 11 in the Valley Baseball League. Quick math says 28 in addition to the 5 actual Minor League teams gives up 33 ( unless you count Princeton, like I do).
This is addition to the other Summer League groups like the Rockingham County Baseball League in the Shenandoah Valley. Amazingly, the split is 14 above Interstate 64 and 19 below to fictional Graham- Carter Line.
The two most recent groups get together for an All-Star game each season in addition to some of the teams scheduling games versus the Tri-City Chili Peppers 🌶 of the Coastal Plains League.
Both of these leagues require the interested players in paying to play which goes directly to the cost of playing the games.
Six separate categories for the 28 Summer League teams to go with three A, one AA and one AAA minor league teams that dot the Commonwealth.
The VBL hat covers the beautiful Shenandoah Valley and represents the 11 Valley Baseball League teams in the region. The combination of 12 baseballs below I-64 are a mixture of Logo Balls and foul balls collected from the 12 parks located there.
The ball from the launching of the Fredericksburg Nats is the one that sits separated from the others and teams 25, 26 and 27 are playing in the Cal Ripen League across the I-66 corridor in Northern Virginia.
You can run the number even higher if you chose to add the Summer League games being played in the Tidewater area or the Rockingham County Baseball League that also competes in the Shenandoah Valley.
Let’s start with 27 – 3 up top, 12 in the middle and another dozen on the Southside.
The final mile has been driven and now the Quest is completed but the big question is what does one do with all of the knowledge gathered over the past 3 weeks?
There are a large number of folks spread out across the Commonwealth attempting to offer a form of entertainment wrapped around a baseball ⚾️ diamond. Our beautiful state has cities and towns alike hosting these games and those games are being played a number of levels, ranging from Collegiate Summer ball to the Triple-A Tides in Norfolk.
The common denominator with the 12 groups that play their games below what I now call the Graham- Carter line that other folks call Interstate 64 is this – they are ALL facing challenges right now!
I am truly pulling for all 12 operations to make it to the other side of the Covid Pandemic and the reorganization of Minor League Baseball by the folks at Major League Baseball. It’s been a one-two punch that teams haven’t faced in decades, if they ever faced something of this magnitude.
Once again I will mention that my 12th team is the Princeton Whistlepigs and I do understand that they reside a few miles above the border in West Virginia I simply can’t omit the town that gave our Golden Bears a place to host the most recent Senior Day celebration in addition to getting me started thinking about the Cause and Effect of 43 places losing their affiliation with Minor League baseball.
We live in a day and age where we are trying to make the World a better place by showing everyone that discrimination for ANY reason is unacceptable. If you apply this simple process to the powers to be that want to help out Minor League baseball teams how can you possibly stop short of also helping the communities that give the future of the sport a home to improve their games during the off season of College ball.
Yes, I do think it’s that simple – if you are wanting to help the Big Boys, you should also want to help the backbone of what supplies the rising stars of tomorrow.
A.S.P.N on The Hill 