It’s a small world
Yesterday at work I noticed some things that made me realize how tiny the world of professional baseball is, even though each of the 30 Major League clubs has at least six minor league teams. It always astonishes me how many of the literally thousands of pro ballplayers out there know each other. Some used to be teammates in pro ball, but got traded away to different clubs, some played in college together. A pair of Omaha Royals were teammates somewhere in New England when they were 13 years old, and now happen to be teammates here.
One thing I love about showing up eeeeaaaarrrrrllllyyyy to work at games every day is seeing our players at the visitors’ dugout (or vice versa), where players who used to be teammates get to be reunited, if only for a short while. They get to gossip about former teammates, catch up on family news, and share laughs about old times, all as friends… Or they’ll go out for a drink together after games. Heck, even when the games are going on, you catch these guys chatting and giggling with each other when they meet up in the infield after a hit. I love how the pace and nature of baseball allows for that kind of comradere (even among rivals). It’s one of many things that makes baseball more human than any other sport.
Yesterday I met a few good people who came to watch the Salt Lake Bees (Angels’ AAA affiliate) play because they had been host families to some of the Bees back when they were in single-A. I think that would be so very cool, especially for the young kids of the host families, to watch the guys who lived with you, for whom you cooked supper and maybe did laundry, move up the ladder of professional ball. And those players know they have some lifelong fans; folks who will follow them to games at higher levels of baseball and cheer extra loudly for them. Everybody wins.