Stars at the Bottom of the Ladder

On Tuesday I drove out to Lansing to watch the Midwest League All-Star Game. Oldsmobile Park at Lansing drew an interesting reaction from me. It's a fairly new yard. Not as nice as the one in South Bend, and it doesn't have the charm of an old park ala the WPA product in Clinton. The seats themselves are only OK. The food lines were fine, but there was a level of luxury boxes. Egad that's wrong! The minor leagues are where we are supposed to go to escape all that is evil about the Bigs, and here in single-A ball we have luxury boxes (although I will note that both Lansing and Kane County have full-color bigscreen TV screens on their scoreboards for replays, something you wouldn't expect to see in A-ball. Then again, those two teams are at the top of the attendance charts so they've got cash to spare). The only leeway I'll give them is that since the state capitol is in Lansing maybe the government bigwigs need those boxes.

Michigan really isn't a part of the Midwest. My evidence for this is the 1/6 page ad for the Deja Vu Love Boutique (an adult toy store) in the official game program. That wouldn't fly in a place like Indiana or Iowa... The ad should have read "Baseball, America's other favorite pasttime."

Prior to the game they had a home run contest. Devoted readers of my weekly reports will remember that I was raving about Aaron McNeal when Michigan came to town a while back. He's leading the league at 21 dingers (second place has 17, third 14), and has 77 RBI to second place's mid-50's. Batting average is just shy of 300. In any case, he was included in the dinger race. My gut feeling was that it was going to be over before it began, I've seen this guy knock the pill around.

Also included in the home run contest was Scott Kirby (17 dingers for Beloit, who was promoted to the California League after the game). Brandon Larson of Rockford provided a funny moment when he was announced as being a member of the "Rockford Cubbies." The entire Rockford contingent in the dugout shouted "Rockford Reds!" That's a bad sign about the hometown people as they should know by now that Lansing is the current Cubs farm team. Tyrus Meadows got the nod mainly on the strength of being a hometown player.

In the first round each player was allowed seven outs. McNeal went first and with one out left had only one homerun. Then bang bang bang he knocked out three; one to deep center field and the other two pulled right down the line. That gave him four for the first round. Kirby and Larson managed one a piece and Meadows got as many as I would have. Kirby won a playoff round three dingers to zero for the right to face McNeal. So the two best homerun hitters in the league went head to head.

NcNeal went first and produced seven homeruns in ten outs. None were cheap, they were all screamers down the line or lofted to the deepest part of the park. Kirby accounted well for himself with five home runs, but the outcome wasn't in doubt. McNeal got $350, Kirby $150 and the also-rans All-Star sweatshirts.

The game itself was rather incredible. Usually when you go to see a minor league game the quality isn't very high. It's not that the play is sloppy, it's just that some of these guys aren't very good. This time out the players were the ones who are going to make the Bigs. Very crisp defense, and an element of speed that you don't normally see in A-ball were noticible.

The manager of the West squad decided that it was his duty to get every one of his pitchers into the game. His first three pitchers got an inning a piece, and then he would go two outs - one out with the rest of the bullpen until he got a full inning out of his last man. Lost in the pitching changes was one of the greatest pitching performances I've ever seen.

League batting leader Aaron Miles got a hit off of Juan Rincon in the 4th. He was the only player to reach base. One hit, no walks, no errors or hit batsmen. One over the minimum. No doubt the greatest pitching effort ever put forth by a combination of 14 men. Sadly, I don't think that many of the fans realized that they were one hit away from perfection...

Pitching Line for the West squad:

Name	IP	R	ER	H	BB	K
Therneau (Rockford)	1	0	0	0	0	0
Averette (Rockford)	1	0	0	0	0	0
Merrell (Clinton)	1	0	0	0	0	1
Rincon (Quad City)	.2	0	0	1	0	1
Griffin (Peoria)	.1	0	0	0	0	0
Duarte (Cedar Rapids)	.2	0	0	0	0	1
Walrond (Peoria)	.1	0	0	0	0	0
Hoard (Quad City)	.2	0	0	0	0	1
Brunette (Peoria)	.1	0	0	0	0	0
Noyce (Kane County)	.2	0	0	0	0	1
Rivera (Quad City)	.1	0	0	0	0	0
Clackum (Kane County)	.2	0	0	0	0	0
Puffer (Clinton)	.1	0	0	0	0	1
Jones (Cedar Rapids)	1	0	0	0	0	1
Totals	9	0	0	1	0	7

The West got three runs off of Mike Koplove in the fifth. John Schaeffer pulled a double down the left field line to lead off the inning and scored in front of Jason Hill's triple to center (Hill is a catcher, so that triple was hit hard). Jack Wilson's single brought in Hill and Wilson himself eventually came around to score. The West would add another run in the ninth for a 4-0 victory.

I'm going to put the game program somewhere where I can find it later. It will be interesting to see who pans out from this bunch. After doing some homework on Aaron McNeal I've soured on him just a little bit. The Oakland native is really whacking the ball around the park, but he's 21. That's a little old for a true prospect to be in low-A ball. He's spent two years in rookieball and this is his second year in low-A. Assuming that he advances a league a year he's in the majors at age 25. He could do it, but he's not the greatest guy in the minors. But heck, he's fun to watch.