2022 was an interesting year for minor league balls, with almost all of the interesting stuff coming from the independent leagues. The final month of the year is no exception!

The Pecos League continues to lead the pack with individualized team baseballs. Next season will see three new teams added to the circuit: the Blackwell Flycatchers, the Lancaster Sound Breakers, and the Marysville Drakes. As of this writing two of the three game balls have been produced and you can see them here.

That will wrap up this year’s news. Here’s hoping 2023 will see some fun stuff from the affiliated leagues as well. My Christmas wish for Santa is a return of All-Star Game logos!

From everyone here at the Museum we wish you and yours a very merry holiday season and a joyous new year!

-Tony Baseballs

MiLB who?

Just when I’m resigned to a dearth of commemorative gamers in MiLB, the independent leagues come through again.

Following the recent announcement of the Atlantic League‘s home-grown ball, the Drake (see previous post), balls with red and blue laces have popped up in another MLB Partner League, the American Association.

This ball is from a Chicago Dogs game. An employee of the team stated that the AA had a shortage of its own baseballs so Rawlings repurposed balls it had already made for the Atlantic League but had not stamped yet.

Will the American Association also drop Rawlings and move to Drake/OT as have the Atlantic and Pioneer Leagues? So far reports of those balls are mixed; players seem to like the Drake but are not crazy about the Pioneer League’s OT Sports balls, even though they are presumably made by the same company (OT Sports has provided the Atl League’s uniforms since 2021).

Will the American Association adopt red and blue laces as its standard design? That would make three MLB Partner leagues using multi-colored stitches, but two using red and blue (the Frontier League had been using red-and-blue laces but is now back to red). Maybe the AA switches up the colors? Or even better for collectors, they go the Pecos League route and make a ball for each team, with laces in the team colors!

The Independent leagues are where the action is right now in terms of new and interesting ball designs.

We’ve really got two new baseballs in town, but the headline’s catchier when it’s singular.

As previously reported by fans and confirmed today by the Sports Business Journal, the Atlantic League has begun using baseballs of its own manufacture.

The league has applied to trademark “Drake”, its name for the new ball in honor of 19th Century inventor Ellis Drake, who helped perfect the interlocking “figure 8” baseball cover. Even with trademark approval, reportedly the ball will not be available for retail sale.

Primarily as a move to reduce costs, the new ball has been in the works for years. An initial production run of 108,000 balls are now being used, with more to come.

An added benefit to cost reduction seems to be that pitchers report getting a better grip on the ball, right out of the box. The story states that other minor leagues are inquiring about it.

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The Pioneer League is also using a new ball this season in its second season as an MLB Partner League.

Pic courtesy of FOTS (Friend of The Site) Tom O’Reilly.

A tip of the hat for the multi-colored laces, that’s always a great look. It’s not clear if this is a special event ball or if it’s the design for regular season gamers.

(The front panel design somewhat resembles that of “the Drake”; has the Atlantic League made balls for its fellow independent and MLBPL?)

We’ve lost individual minor league balls in the affiliated world this season so it’s exciting to see some game ball-related developments. It’s also nice to see that even as Partner Leagues, the independents aren’t just MLB puppet leagues, they can still innovate and stand out.

There may be hope for minor league baseball yet.

Following last year’s takeover and realignment of the minors by MLB, Triple-A was the only level of minor league play that did not have a post-season (it kinda did, but not really. See here). This year sees the return of a post-season to Triple-A, with a new playoff format: The Triple-A Triple Championship Weekend.

The Las Vegas Aviators will host the inaugural Weekend, set for September 30 – October 2, perhaps as a balm for losing out on the 2020 Triple-A National Championship Game.

Here’s how it will work: the division winners of the Pacific Coast League will play a single game on Friday night to determine the league champion. The International League will do the same on Saturday night. On Sunday the two league champs will play a winner-take-all game to crown the Triple-A Champion.

I don’t love that these contests are only one-game affairs, it takes a series to truly determine the better team (and even that can be a crap shoot in a lot of ways). On the other hand, the Triple-A title hasn’t been decided by a series since 2000, so that’s nothing new.

It’s great to see a postseason of any kind for Triple-A, the last one was in 2019. Of course, what we really care about is whether there will be a game ball commissioned. The last word from MLB was that no special event gamers would be made this season but that was prior to this announcement, so we can hope? Stay tuned…

The Independent MLB Partner Frontier League unveiled a new logo today, as well as a new website and stats partnership with PrestoStats.

Germane to this website, will this mean a new Frontier League game ball this season? Although the current ball doesn’t have it, there is precedent for a league logo stamp on the official balls:

Does that mean we can look forward to a new ball in 2022? I’m trying to find out, so watch this space.

In other news, or really, non-news, MLB has confirmed that there was no MiLB Opening Day/Night ball this year so you can stop looking for those. In addition there will be no commemorative gamer for the MiLB version of the Field of Dreams Game between the Quad Cities River Bandits and the Cedar Rapids Kernels on August 9th. Another missed opportunity, for both MLB and collectors. I’m sensing a theme.

We have an update on the state of Minor League Baseball and what the game balls will look like this season. The Museum recently spoke with Jeff Lantz, former MiLB Director of Communications and current MLB Senior Manager, Communications, (and fellow official game ball collector!) about the current structure of MiLB and, specifically to our interest, what the official baseballs will look like this season and going forward.

Following the announcement that the generic, regional league names used in 2021 will be replaced with the traditional league names in 2022, we asked Mr. Lantz about the league stats. “According to Major League Baseball’s Data Operations team (MiLB’s official statistician), the league records and stats from 2021 will be considered part of the old (and returning) league histories.” This is great news in terms of the history and continuity of the affiliated minor leagues.

Regarding each league’s front office, Mr. Lantz said, “The leagues will not have presidents, but MLB has assigned Regional Supervisors that assist with the operation of the leagues.”

What does that mean for the official game balls? “All balls will have Commissioner Manfred’s signature on them moving forward (assuming that most clubs exhausted their supply of the Pat O’Conner balls or the old league balls last year).” So the “generic” MiLB ball that debuted in 2021 will continue to be the official ball of all affiliated leagues.

Finally, we will not (yet) see a return of league All-Star Games in 2022, but the post-season series format introduced last year will continue. The regular season ball will be used for these series as well.

While the revived league names was a welcome development, the fact that no commemorative game balls will be produced in 2022 is disappointing. We can hope that in the future MLB will consider reinstituting the league All-Star Games and producing unique game balls for them once again.

We would like to thank Mr. Jeff Lantz and MLB for taking the time to answer our questions.

 

MiLB (whatever that means these days) has announced that the affiliated minor leagues will return to their historical league names beginning this season!

Apparently, the terrible, generic league names used in 2021 were there to give time for MLB to acquire the rights to use the real (historical) names. It’s unclear exactly what that entailed.

From BaseballAmerica.com, here’s what the 2022 season will look like:

• Triple-A East becomes the International League
• Triple-A West becomes the Pacific Coast League
• Double-A Central becomes the Texas League
• Double-A South becomes the Southern League
• Double-A East becomes the Eastern League
• High-A Central becomes the Midwest League
• High-A East becomes the South Atlantic League
• High-A West becomes the Northwest League
• Low-A West becomes the California League
• Low-A East becomes the Carolina League
• Low-A Southeast becomes the Florida State League

There remain slight differences between now and when MLB first muscled its way to full control of MiLB after the 2020 season. The Northwest League will remain at the High-A classification after being Class A-Short Season as of 2020; the Appalachian League transitioned to a collegiate summer league; the Pioneer League is now an independent MLB Partner League; and the New York-Penn League is still gone.

Now that sanity has been partially restored to affiliated minor league baseball, some questions remain for us collectors. Namely, what will the official baseballs look like? Will all leagues continue to use generic MiLB balls with Manfred’s stamp? Will they go back to unique balls for each league, but with Manfred’s stamp? Will each league still have its own President and if so, will they be the same people who presided over the leagues as of 2020?

Stay tuned to this space for the answers as soon as I receive them.

As predicted, all affiliated minor leagues began using the same ball late in the 2021 season as supplies of their own unique league baseballs ran out.

The same league stamp, the same ink, the same Commissioner’s stamp. The variety and flavor of affiliated minor league baseballs has been eradicated along with the variety and flavor of the leagues themselves.

Word is that All-Star Games will make their return in the 2022 season. Will we see uniquely-designed logos on the official game balls? We can only hope, but we shouldn’t hold our collective breath. MLB has shown no inclination to use even the slightest imagination when it comes to its hostile takeover of MiLB.

The 2021 minor league season continues to evolve, even in mid-June. After MLB took over MiLB (a hostile takeover, some would say) and eliminated historic league names in favor of generic labels (which some would also characterize as a hostile move … guess which side of that fence I’m on), the affiliated minor league season began with no All-Star Games and no post-season games nor series on the schedule. There are still no 2021 All-Star Games but we are getting a post-season, unlike any post-season we’ve ever seen.

MiLB announced a couple of weeks ago that the lower-level leagues (Double-A down to Low-A) would play post-season series to determine a league champion. So, that’s good. The two Triple-A leagues would not have a post-season but their regular season would be extended by ten games, and each league would name a Champion based on its teams’ regular season winning percentage.

Today MiLB announced that those final 10 games will not be part of the regular season after all. They will be collectively called the “Triple-A Final Stretch”. It’s apparently a way to have a post-season without actually having a post-season. So the word “stretch” is appropriate.

Here’s how it will work: in addition to a Regular Season Champion being proclaimed based on winning percentage as previously announced, each Triple-A league will also name a “Triple-A Final Stretch” Champion based upon the highest winning percentage during the tacked-on final 10 games. Those ten games will consist of a 5 home and 5 away series. The opponent for each series is different, but it appears that proximity was a significant determining factor. The matchups can be found here.

Because it’s not an actual championship contest it necessitates a host of tie-breaking conditions, which I won’t go into here. I’ll just say that if your opponent is determined randomly and you need a bunch of tie-breakers, you don’t have a true championship series. You don’t even have a real tournament since each team only plays two opponents, there are no rounds, and nobody is eliminated along the way.

To recap: come October we’ll have a Triple-A East Regular Season Champion, a Triple-A West Regular Season Champion, and a Triple-A Final Stretch Champion that has nothing to do with either of them. Glad they could clear that up for us.

While having more baseball games is always better than having fewer baseball games, this is kind of a haphazard mess which we can hope gets hammered into a more traditional look for 2022. We collectors can also hope that MLB/MiLB will produce an official ball for the lower-league post-season series and for the Triple-A Final Stretch. If we can’t have a true Triple-A championship this season at least we might have something new to add to our collection.

-Tony Baseballs

When you’ve been collecting for over 25 years and discover items you didn’t yet know existed, it’s pretty exciting! Today we’re spotlighting such a find, some great minor league collectibles from the Tacoma, Washington, Triple-A club.

Mr. Kevin Kalal worked for the Tacoma franchise first as Public Relations Director from 1991-1994, when the team was the Oakland A’s Triple-A affiliate and played as the Tigers; and then as Assistant General Manager, Director of Baseball Operations from 1995-2007, during which time the team was renamed to the Rainiers and became a member of the Seattle Mariners organization.

Kevin recently put several Official Pacific Coast League balls up for sale from various years that were stamped on the sweet spot with the team’s Opening Night date. Since our focus at minorleaguebaseballs.com is official game balls, we reached out to ask Kevin about the origin of these baseballs. He revealed that he had overseen what became a Tacoma tradition.

“The owner of the club was George Foster (not the former Cincinnati Reds player),” Kevin wrote, “and he began the tradition of making Opening Night balls in 1993 and his final season as the owner was 2006. In addition to the balls, he had commemorative bats made for the fiull-time staff members and other VIPs of the club.

“I was responsible for having the balls imprinted (usually a case of balls (10 dozen)) and what was left over from the owner’s gifting were used in the Opening Night Game (usually about 5 dozen balls).”

You can see those we managed to snag in the “All-Star Games and Special Events” section (1996, 1997, 2004, 2006). A couple of samples are below.

Many thanks to Kevin Kalal for this information; to former team owner George Foster for creating such a wonderful baseball tradition; and to both men for their work in minor league baseball and the community of Tacoma. It’s a great story and a reminder to us collectors that no matter how long we spend in this hobby there are still hidden gems to be found. It’s just one of the many reasons that minor league baseball is the best baseball experience!

A quick promotional note: The Collector’s Guide is still available for sale on this site and on Amazon.com, but these balls will be featured in the revised Edition, along with updates for the 2021 season. Look for it soon!

-Tony Baseballs