California’s Other Boys of Summer

“Who’s on third?” a teenage girl in the stands pipes up.

“No, Who’s on first,” someone else in the next section wisecracks.

At tiny Sam Lynn Ballpark, home of the California League’s Bakersfield Blaze, a Single A franchise of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the seats are so close to the action that you can hear everything, even the faint whoosh of the on-deck hitter’s practice swing.

The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes are on their way to beating the Blaze, 6-2, but minor league baseball isn’t about winning games or even winning seasons. It’s about the pure, in-the-moment pleasure of the sport. How could it be otherwise for die-hard fans who know that every player on the field will be gone, either moving up or getting cut, by this time next year?

Everything that is missing from the major league game can be found in minor league parks (only for teams affiliated with major league clubs) dotted around the L.A. area, in San Bernardino, Lake Elsinore, Visalia, and Lancaster. In Bakersfield, the reserved seats are $6 (and even the $4 general admission seats are good), the hot dogs are $2, kids in uniform get in free, and the prize for the “dirtiest car in the parking lot” contest is a free car wash.

But underneath all the homespun charm runs the electric possibility of catching a sneak preview of baseball history. Imagine what it must have been like to watch Pedro Martinez pitch his first game of pro ball. Ken Eddy, who has been a season ticket holder since he retired from the Kern County Sheriff’s Department in 1989, has seen Martinez, Mike Piazza, Eric Karros, Raoul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and Paul LoDuca in action. “I was even here the one night Orel Hershiser pitched,” Eddy remembers. “He was rotating through on rehab.”

Eddy won’t say who his favorite player is this year, because as a member of the booster club, he “adopts” a different player every season, offering free rides, advice and the occasional home-cooked meal. The dinners are especially welcome, since million-dollar signing bonuses are reserved for a handful of hot prospects. The average Single A ballplayer earns $600 to $800 a month, according to Blaze assistant general manager Brian Thomas. “The rest of the year, they’re working at Radio Shack.”

Tonight, silence falls when No. 22, Josh Hamilton, steps up to the plate for his first at-bat. Hamilton was the No. 1 draft pick in 1999, and the second high schooler ever to be drafted in that top spot. A-Rod was the first. Hamilton, bless his soul, hits it out of the park.