Well, I did it, even though I knew what I would find.
I looked at the official standings for Major League Baseball 2020. Every line was the same, all 30 teams, each league and division.
Here’s an example:
Atlanta Braves — Wins 0, Losses 0, Percentage .000, Games Behind —, Last 10 0-0, Home 0-0, Away 0-0.
The National League and American League were formed as separate entities in 1876 and 1901, respectively, and only became a single organization in 2000, even though the leagues were cooperating since 1903, when the first World Series was played.
No series was played the following year, however, because the owner of the NL’s New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) refused to allow his team to play the “inferior” AL team, the Boston Americans (now the Boston Red Sox). The only other year not to have a series was 1994, when a labor dispute effectively canceled the season.
The World Series was played every other year, however, including during both World Wars, the Great Depression, a 1989 earthquake and the global influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.
In addition to the 30 major league teams, 256 teams are affiliated through Minor League Baseball, including the Mississippi Braves in Pearl — the Atlanta Braves’ AA team.
Another minor league team was the Edmonton Trappers, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. They were a Triple-A team in the Pacific Coast League from 1981-2004. Though they were ultimately associated with seven MLB teams, they were tied to the California Angels when I saw the Trappers play in the summer of 1989.
Some friends and I went to a game and sat behind the home team dugout.
What made this game unique to me was not that it was my first minor league game to attend, but that the outfield was shortened in right field by a fence separating the play area from a railroad yard. At least once during the game, a train came thundering through what would have been the field in virtually any other park.
Weird, funny and very loud. No balls that went over the right field fence were counted as home runs.
I’m not a baseball expert, though I enjoy the sport. America’s pastime is the most-watched sport in the United States. I’m also not a rabid fan of any team, unless you count when my kids were playing.
I missed baseball this year. I miss my kids playing — even all the hassle and busyness it was to get them to practices, games, etc. I miss the messy nachos, popcorn and sunflower seeds that inevitably accompanied each game. I even miss working in the concession stand, cooking french fries and hot dogs.
But what I really miss, honestly, is sitting as a teenager in a folding chair in my driveway in Chunky and watching teams play in the field across the road.
Now that was baseball.
