Triple-A Rating : Major League Baseball Has Lots of Troubles, but Minors Are Hot

Crash Davis might not recognize Athletic Park, new home of the Durham Bulls and one of 58 new minor league stadiums built since 1987.

In the face of labor and other problems in the major leagues, the minors have been booming.

New stadiums. Record attendance figures. Soaring franchise values. Increased marketing revenue.

All overlooked when alleged experts talk about the demise of baseball as the national pastime.

Even overlooked, perhaps, by the major leagues.

“The minors have been extremely resourceful and aggressive,” said Bud Selig, acting commissioner of major league baseball.

“They have marketed brilliantly. There are lessons to be learned.”

For many years, the majors and minors shared lessons at what was known as the industry’s winter meetings, an annual December convention at which trades and free-agent signings generally stole headlines from any other business.

But when player agents virtually commandeered the 1992 meetings at Louisville, Ky., and out-of-control owners--in a frenzied five days--spent almost $260 million on free-agent signings in a contradictory message to their plea of economic woes, Selig organized a major league withdrawal from that annual process.

Major league general managers now meet in November. Owners hold quarterly meetings, the next in Los Angeles in January.

“Louisville was a nightmare, a three-ring circus,” Selig said. “You couldn’t have reasonable meetings or even walk across the lobby [without being approached by an agent].

“Our relationship with the minor leagues has never been better. I think their people understand [why we no longer hold a joint convention].

“There has to be an atmosphere conducive to doing business, and that was no longer the priority.”

The minors have been left to meet separately. The 1995 convention of the National Assn. of Professional Baseball Leagues opened here Friday and ends today.

Participation by major league executives has been limited to a few seminars and Monday’s Rule V draft of minor league free agents.

In addition, the convention featured a job fair for about 400 applicants seeking some 130 minor league positions, a closed-to-the public trade show of 300 exhibits and appeals by minor league executives for:

--Support of the major leagues’ retention of the antitrust exemption as protection against indiscriminate franchise movement that would threaten minor league territories.

--A return of the joint convention.

Mike Moore, finishing a four-year term as president of the national association and unanimously elected to another on Monday, said he agrees with Selig’s view that the agents “drove everyone nuts” in Louisville, but “I’d like to feel we could overcome that.

“The minors are an important part of the fabric of the industry,” he said. “There are tremendous benefits for both sides in a joint convention.

“I believe fully that the majors intend to return to a joint meeting once they have a labor agreement in place, but right now that’s the biggest problem the industry faces.

“The majors seem disoriented in that regard, and that’s preventing us from sitting down jointly and creating a blueprint for the future. We need to work together.”

The major league strike in late 1994 and early ’95 derailed a joint committee of major and minor league owners that had met six times in the previous year to discuss mutual problems. The committee has met only by telephone since, but the minors have continued to thrive, benefiting in some locations, perhaps, by the fan dissatisfaction with the strike.

Said Roy Englebrecht, executive vice president of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes: “We picked up several new season-ticket holders who said they were giving up their Angel and Dodger tickets after being exposed to minor league baseball during the stoppage.

“I mean, they were blown away by the fun they could have on $3, $4 and $5, then be home in 10 minutes.”

The 150 minor league clubs drew more than 33 million spectators in each of the last two years, the fourth- and fifth-highest totals ever and the highest since the post-World War II era, when there were 300 to 400 teams. In addition, 44 teams set franchise attendance records in 1995 and six leagues broke records.

Bobby Brett, who in conjunction with brothers George, Ken and John, owns the Spokane Indians of the Class-A Northwest League and the Adelanto-based High Desert Mavericks of the Class A California League, calls it a renaissance.

“In the minors, the fans actually like the owners,” he said. “But why wouldn’t they? They can park for free, get in for $3.50 and buy half-price hot dogs two or three times a year.”

The Bretts, once one of El Segundo’s most illustrious families, bought the Indians for $137,000 in 1985 and now also own the Spokane hockey and soccer teams. They are not entertaining offers for the baseball club, but Class-A franchises are selling for $3 million or more.

New stadiums, such as those in Lake Elsinore and Rancho Cucamonga, are enhancing redevelopment, putting towns on the map, providing community pride and giving fans comparatively low-priced entertainment options.

The mom-and-pop operations are being replaced by highly trained marketing staffs who attend annual seminars on customer service. Every team has a mascot now, logo-laden souvenirs and a catchy nickname. Who can resist the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Norfolk Navigators or the West Michigan Whitecaps, who drew a Class A-record 507,989 fans to their 2-year-old Grand Rapids park that is being expanded from 7,500 seats to 10,000?

The music rocks, the players sign autographs, and there is a zany contest or entertainment package between every inning. It’s grass-roots baseball with a little Spike Jones on the side.

Said the Quakes’ Englebrecht, “Our credo is that if we provide great entertainment at the right price in a clean environment and remember to say thank you, they’ll come back. We never want to take anything away from the game, but we feel that we’ve failed if we don’t make fans laugh a dozen times a night.

“I can’t remember the last time I laughed at a major league game unless the guy next to me told a joke. I mean, we have a great advantage in the minor leagues because every seat is a good seat, close to the action, but we’ve also learned to push the entertainment envelope, which is where I think the major leagues have failed.”

Said Moore, the national association president, “We can’t really promote the players because they’re constantly changing, so we have to sell the smell, stress the fun. We hope you know who won the game, but more than that we hope you had fun.”

Record numbers seem to indicate that fun is being had. Moore thinks minor league attendance will top 34 million in 1996, when six new stadiums will open. By 2000, more than half of all the minor league stadiums will have been rebuilt or refurbished.

“If the minors continue to do well, the majors should do better,” Englebrecht said of the expanding fan base and marketing potential. The operative word, of course, is should. As Selig noted, there are lessons to be learned.