25: The Minor League Experience

All material is copyrighted and may not be used without written permission.

by Chrisklob

CHARLESTON, SC – As many of you know, I am a huge fan of minor league baseball. There is something special and different about the baseball experience at a minor league ball park that you just don’t get at a big league facility. The seats tend to be a whole lot closer to the field and even the worst seats in the house are generally pretty good. It’s an inexpensive night out too, with tickets at my home park as cheap as $4.00. Beers are $3.00 and even the food is “normally” priced.

Another great aspect of minor league ball is how close you can get to the players. In Low A ball, the kids are generally pretty young and are not yet tired of signing autographs for the kids or of their budding celebrity. As a frequent visitor to our local field I have struck up friendships with a couple of players that exist to this day. The likelihood of that happening with a big leaguer is virtually nonexistent in my experience.

Another interesting part of the minor league experience is some of the great characters that work in the stadium. The Charleston RiverDogs is owned in part by Mike Veeck, son of legendary HOF’er Bill Veeck. Veeck the Elder owned the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox at various times. Larry Doby, Satchell Paige and Eddie Gaedel were all signees of Veeck’s. He planted the beloved ivy at Wrigley Field and as owner of the White Sox snuck a microphone into the booth while Harry Carey sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, had it broadcast into the stadium and a tradition was born.

It is very safe to say that Mike is definitely a “chip off the old block”. Remember “Disco Demolition Night”? That was one of Mike’s ideas. Granted it wasn’t one of his better ones but it really got a lot of people’s attention. Among the more interesting and zany promotions dreamed up by Veeck and his team for RiverDogs promotions include Vasectomy Night (some lucky guy was going to get a free vasectomy but the Catholic Church complained so they cancelled it), Funeral Night, and Silent Night (no one aside from the players, coaches and umpires were allowed to make any noise at all, which was a blast, by the way). This brings me to what I believe might be Veeck’s best idea ever.

Whenever I hear “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, I am automatically reminded of two gentlemen: Don Wardlow and Jim Lucas. For twelve years, three of which were spent in Charleston, they called the games for the radio broadcast. Lucas did the play-by-play; Wardlow, the color commentary. To say that they were excellent would be an understatement. Lucas had a way with words that is simply indescribable. He painted such a fine picture of the game’s happenings that, quite frankly, made it unnecessary to actually be at the game. Close your eyes and listen and you’ll know how long the pitcher’s sideburns are, how many steps the left fielder took to catch the fly ball, the exact color of the visiting teams uniform tops. You’ll understand with as much clarity as the catcher what the home plate umpire’s strike zone looks like, which cheek the first baseman put his dip in and how big a lead the runner at first has taken. The guy was truly an artist in his ability to paint a picture.

Lucas didn’t provide this information just for the radio listeners. He did it because it was a necessity for his partner. Don Wardlow has been blind since birth and has never seen anything, at least not in the way that you and I can see. But his baseball vision is astounding. His knowledge of the game and its history is astonishing. After hearing Lucas’ description of what had just occurred, Wardlow invariably had something interesting to add. It might have been a bit of baseball trivia from 1893 or 1983. It might have been about an event that took place at a game he’d attended as a child. It could have been about anything, but whatever it was, it was always relevant and interesting to the listener.

I mentioned Harry Carey and we are all aware of the tradition of the seventh inning stretch that has spread throughout baseball. Don Wardlow carried that tradition on at our games, but he had a twist. While we all know the verse that starts out “Take me out to the ballgame”, few of us, myself included, knew that this is actually the chorus of the song. Like Caray, Wardlow wouldn’t make it far on “American Idol”, but he dutifully sang the first two verses nightly.

By the way, the lyrics were written by Jack Norworth in 1908 and the music was composed by Albert Von Tilzer:

This is the original version:
Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry sou
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do:”

(chorus)
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

(chorus)
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don’t care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win, it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.

If you’d like to hear the song performed here’s a link (requires RealPlayer).

Wardlow decided to retire a few years ago. His wife is also disabled and he felt guilty about being away on long road trips when she would take ill. The RiverDogs decided to perform only the “traditional” version during the seventh inning stretch the year after he left. That was a disappointing but understandable decision as performing the first verse was really his “thing”. Either way, whenever I hear that song, no matter where I am, I am instantly reminded of Jim Lucas and Don Wardlow, baseball announcers extraordinaire. Just a thread in the fabric of the minor league baseball experience!

~by Chris~

Home Plate

Text Effects

Blog Birthdays

The Lineup Card

Baseball Videos & Photos

Our Own Candid Cameras!

Email: BravesAndStuff@hotmail.com