Tonight was another trip to Ontario to see the Tower Buzzers, the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate, this time against the Inland Empire 66ers, an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. By my count, this was somewhere around my fifteenth baseball game of the season and my sixth or seventh different ballpark. I've been doing a lot of baseball traveling this summer, and I'm finding that the games themselves are becoming only part of the reason I enjoy going.
Once again, minor league baseball gave me something to think about that had very little to do with the final score.
An Hour Early
I arrived about an hour before the game and headed upstairs to the Flight Club. My seat included access to the air-conditioned lounge and buffet, something I appreciated considerably more tonight because it was hot outside and there wasn't much of a breeze.
Getting there early also gave me an unexpected bonus. The Dodgers game was playing on the big screen inside the lounge, so I spent about an hour watching the major league club before heading outside to watch the young men several rungs below them on the organizational ladder.
In retrospect, there was something interesting about that juxtaposition. For an hour, I watched players who had made it. Then I walked outside and watched players trying desperately to get there.
Single-A Shenanigans
The Tower Buzzers won, and the game had just about everything you expect from Single-A baseball. There was a home run, errors, baserunning mistakes, catcher interference, a hit batter, and a few umpire calls that left everyone wondering exactly where the strike zone had migrated.
And, of course, there was Fantasy Football Losers Night.
What exactly Fantasy Football Losers Night has to do with baseball, I couldn't tell you. Probably nothing. That's part of the charm of minor league baseball. Teams seem wonderfully shameless about inventing reasons to have fun at the ballpark. Every night needs a theme, every inning needs some entertainment, and apparently fantasy football losers need their own night at a baseball stadium.
None of it has to make much sense.
It just has to be fun.
So What?
One of my favorite things about the Ontario ballpark is the organist. He's terrific, and he doesn't simply play the predictable handful of songs we've all heard at baseball games for decades. Throughout the evening he'll slip in all kinds of music, and tonight he was playing quite a bit of jazz.
At one point, he played Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Later came Miles Davis and So What.
Sitting next to me was a woman who had struck up a fairly lengthy conversation with the woman sitting in front of her. They were talking quite a bit. In fact, at one point she was telling the other woman that her husband complains about how much she talks.
Meanwhile, between pitches, the organist was playing So What.
Without really thinking about it, and mostly under my breath, I went along with the music.
"So what?"
She turned and looked directly at me.
There are moments in life when you immediately understand that what you intended and what another person heard are two completely different things.
"No, no," I quickly explained. "The music. That's the name of the song. So What. Miles Davis."
Now I'm sitting in a minor league baseball stadium explaining Miles Davis, jazz, and the musical selections of the ballpark organist to a complete stranger so neither she nor her husband thinks the guy sitting next to her has just offered unsolicited commentary on her conversation.
Fortunately, she understood, and it became funny rather than confrontational. We ended up having a pleasant conversation ourselves throughout the rest of the evening.
That's another thing I like about these smaller ballparks. You're close enough to the game to hear things happening on the field, but you're also close enough to the people around you that strangers occasionally stop being strangers.
When Everyone Was the Star
Somewhere during all of this, I started paying closer attention to the players themselves.
Think about who these young men were only a few years ago. For many of them, they were probably the best baseball player at their high school. Maybe they were the best player in their entire league. The pitcher was the kid nobody could hit. The shortstop was the kid everyone came to watch. Their parents sat in the stands while coaches, teammates, and probably a few scouts talked about how far this kid might go.
Some went on to college and became stars there. Eventually somebody from a major league organization noticed them. They were scouted, drafted, signed, or otherwise brought into professional baseball.
Then something happened that must be both exhilarating and humbling.
The star walked into a clubhouse filled with stars.
Everyone there had been the best player somewhere. The pitcher who dominated his high school league was now throwing to a hitter who dominated another one. The college All-American was standing next to another college All-American. The player accustomed to being the person everyone watched was suddenly just another name on a minor league roster.
And they're still nowhere near the top.
Single-A isn't Dodger Stadium. There are more levels above them, filled with better pitchers, better hitters, better fielders, and other prospects competing for the same handful of opportunities. Even reaching Triple-A doesn't guarantee that you'll ever step onto a major league field.
That has to require an enormous psychological adjustment.
Learning Not to Be the Star
I noticed it particularly when the umpire made a couple of calls that certainly appeared questionable from where I was sitting. The players didn't argue. A batter might hesitate for a moment after a questionable strike call, but then he headed back toward the dugout. The pitchers behaved much the same way. There were no dramatic gestures, prolonged arguments, or attempts to show up the umpire.
They moved on.
Watching them, I started wondering how much of minor league player development has nothing whatsoever to do with hitting, pitching, or fielding a baseball. I suspect part of becoming a major league player is learning how not to be the star.
These young men have entered an organization. Talent got them through the door, but talent alone isn't going to get them to Los Angeles. Now they have to learn discipline, patience, teamwork, and how to deal with failure. They have to learn how to accept instruction when they've spent most of their lives being better at baseball than nearly everyone around them.
Perhaps most importantly, they have to learn that being the best player on the team and being a good teammate aren't necessarily the same thing.
From a leadership perspective, I found that fascinating. Organizations outside baseball struggle with exactly the same problem. Someone excels at one level, gets promoted, and suddenly discovers that everyone around them is talented too. The qualities that made someone exceptional yesterday may only make them average tomorrow.
Professional baseball seems to recognize that transition explicitly. That's why the system isn't merely about practice. It's called player development.
They're developing the player, not merely the swing.
Five-Dollar Beer
Of course, I wasn't contemplating leadership development for nine straight innings. This was still minor league baseball.
Ontario has a promotion called the Beer Batter. An opposing player is designated as the Beer Batter, and if he strikes out, beer drops to five dollars for a period of time.
He struck out.
The stadium celebrated, and I went to get my five-dollar beer.
When I ordered one, they tried to give me two. Apparently buying only one discounted beer was an unusual enough decision to require clarification. I assured them that one was fine.
It was very cold, the stadium was very hot, and under those circumstances one cold beer was just about perfect.
Fireworks After Baseball
The Tower Buzzers won, which made the evening considerably more enjoyable than my previous visit, when the Fresno Grizzlies demolished them 17-2.
After the final out came the fireworks. I've now seen several minor league fireworks shows this summer, and I'm becoming convinced that fireworks after a baseball game are one of life's underrated pleasures.
You don't need Disneyland. You don't need the Fourth of July. You don't need a massive stadium filled with fifty thousand people. Sometimes it's enough to sit in a small ballpark with a few thousand other people while the stadium lights go dark and fireworks explode beyond the outfield.
Then the lights come back on, everyone gathers their things, and you walk back to your car.
Another summer night completed.
The Road Ahead
By my rough count, I'm somewhere around fifteen baseball games into this season, spread across six or seven different ballparks. I'm hoping to add a couple more major league games before the season ends, and I'd still like to get out to the ballparks in San Bernardino and perhaps Visalia if I can work them into my travels.
But I'm discovering that keeping track of the ballparks isn't really the point. Neither is keeping track of wins and losses.
It's the things that happen while you're there.
It's hearing Miles Davis on a ballpark organ and accidentally making a stranger think you've insulted her. It's watching a home run on a hot summer night. It's getting a five-dollar beer because some unfortunate opposing batter struck out. It's fireworks over the outfield.
And occasionally it's watching a group of young men chase a dream and realizing that one of the first things they may have to learn is how to stop being the person they have always been.
For most of their lives, somebody told these kids they were special. Their talent proved it. Their statistics proved it. The trophies and scholarships and scouts proved it.
Then professional baseball handed them a uniform, put them in a clubhouse filled with other exceptional young men, and essentially said:
Now show us what else you've got.
Maybe that's one of the reasons I keep going to these games. I leave home expecting to watch baseball, and somewhere between the first pitch and the fireworks, I usually find myself thinking about something else entirely.
Tonight it was about what happens when everyone was the star.
And what it takes to become something more.
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