How Minor League Baseball Teams Work

A minor league baseball team is affiliated with a major league team, and today any minor league team has two major goals:

Most major league teams have minor leagues structured like this:

Although there are some baseball stars who are drafted or signed to contracts and go straight to the majors, they are the exception to the rule. The majority of players play at least one minor league season. Occasionally, exceptional players, such as former Durham Bull Andruw Jones (now a centerfielder for the Atlanta Braves), whirls through all the farm teams in one season and winds up in the majors the following season.

Each minor league team plays in a league of teams with players at similar levels of proficiency, usually with all the teams in the league within busing distance of one another (long, dull bus rides are among some players' least favorite memories of their time in the minors!). As a player advances to AA and AAA, many of those bus trips are replaced by plane rides because league teams are geographically farther apart. (Salaries go up, too!)

All (with the exception of short-season teams which play 76 games) professional baseball players play at least 140 games, working seven-day weeks from early April until (depending on post-season play) the summer's end. (Rain-outs, which once provided an occasional day off, seldom happen anymore, due to the much improved drainage systems in today's ballparks. The only remaining day off? All-Star Game day in July and that's only a day off for players who aren't chosen to play in the game.)

Some minor league teams have long affiliations with major league clubs -- the Durham Bulls were part of the Atlanta Braves' farm system for 17 years. However, one minor league team might be affiliated with several major league systems over its lifetime. That's why, experts say, smart minor league team owners promote and market team loyalty, rather than loyalty to individual players who may be gone next week! In 1998, the Bulls began play as part of the minor league system of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, an American League expansion team.

Some minor league teams use some version of their big club's name. However, because of the popularity and tradition of the Durham Bulls, the team has retained its name, and its familiar logo of a smoke-snorting bull.

According to minor leagues expert Bob Hoie, the first recognized minor league was the Northwestern League, which was organized in 1882. League officials sought cooperation and protection of player contracts from the National League -- a necessary step because independent clubs often lost their best players during the season to the National League and, later, to the American Association clubs.

In 1883, the Northwestern League, the National League and the American Association signed an agreement that bound the clubs to honor the contracts of players on reserve lists, to recognize each other's suspensions and expulsions, to establish territorial rights and to form an arbitration committee to settle disputes. The agreement also set minimum salaries -- at a higher level in the National League and the American Association and lower in the Northwestern League -- and basically assigned "major" or "minor" status to teams, Hoie said.

In 1885, a new National Agreement was adopted, making the National League and the American Association (which had just accepted the Interstate Association as an "alliance" league) the principal parties and removing from minor league clubs the protection of the reserve clause. Two years later, that clause was reinstated for the minors, but the lines had been drawn and the major-minor league distinction had been formalized.

The next new National Agreement, which came on the heels of the American Association's collapse in 1892, established minor league classifications for the first time and awarded major league teams the right to draft minor league players at fixed prices. (While all these negotiations were underway, the number of minor leagues in the country had grown from two in 1883 to 17 by 1888.)

Briefly, organized baseball was confined to the northeast quadrant of the country, expanding to the South in 1885, to the upper midwest in 1886, to California in 1887, Texas in 1888 and the Pacific Northwest in 1890.

Meanwhile, the Negro Baseball League, which was being raided (for players) by the partially integrated minor leagues, sought -- and received -- protection under the National Agreement. Unfortunately, economic woes and, some say, the pressures of the times, led to the closing of the league two weeks later. According to Hoie, that kind of casualty was common during the 19th century when more than 40 percent of the leagues that started a season failed to finish it.

Minor league baseball continued to hang in there with its core supporters over the economic battles of the next several decades -- battles that often focused on draft issues and salaries and pitted majors against minors and higher minors against lower minors.

By 1963, 90 percent of the minor league clubs were major league affiliates and the overall number of minor clubs was down. But that had changed by the 1980s, when minor league baseball exploded (experts aren't sure why), topping 20 million in attendance in 1987 for the first time since the 1950s. The Buffalo, N.Y., team set an all-time minor league attendance record with 1.1 million in 1988. And -- in what may have been the catalyst for the 1990 major-minor crisis -- minor league franchises, which could be picked up for a song in the 1970s, were being sold for millions.

The Professional Baseball Agreement that binds the majors and minors was set to expire at the end of 1990. Under that agreement, the majors provided significant support for the minors. The majors proposed a reduction in those subsidies, claiming that the minors were healthy enough to pay more of their operational expenses. On the other hand, minor league clubs resented what they perceived as attempts to take financial advantage.

After the dust settled, most minors gave in, fearing they couldn't survive without players provided by the majors. Under the new agreement, the majors would still pay most of the operational expenses, but minors were now required to pay a share of their ticket revenues to the majors, forego their share of big-league TV revenues and meet newly established minimum standards at their parks.

It was generally believed that these changes would reduce minor league clubs' profits and, in the process, stabilize or reduce the value of franchises, Hoie said. This did not turn out to be the case; in 1992, the Las Vegas franchise sold for a record $7 million and some less-than-successful Class A franchises were sold for more than $1 million each.

Despite the positive trends of the past decade or so, not all minor league clubs enjoy the degree of success of Buffalo, Indianapolis, Louisville and Durham clubs; around 25 percent of the clubs still draw fewer than 1,000 fans per game. Only time will tell if minor league baseball's roller-coaster ride of the past century will continue.

The rich tradition and history of the Durham Bulls illustrates, in many ways, how the minor leagues in the United States have evolved. Durham has been a baseball town since 1902, when the Durham Bulls took the field for the first time in George Lyon Ball Park as a member of the North Carolina State Professional Baseball League. The Bulls' name came from the town's most successful industry at the time -- tobacco -- and most popular brand of tobacco, Bull Durham. (The movie came later!)

Early leagues opened and folded and shut down on several occasions due to World War I, the Depression and World War II. The team won its first league championship in 1924. And the ballpark, which had undergone two name changes, echoed the team's moniker with the new name, El Toro ("the bull" in Spanish) Park in 1926.

Durham began its first major league affiliation in 1933 with the New York Yankees. Following that season, local philanthropists donated $20,000 to the city, which purchased El Toro and renamed it once again -- this time to Durham Athletic Park, or what locals call the DAP. This park, located near downtown Durham's tobacco warehouses (now used for other functions), became an integral part of the community, drawing families and sports fans from across the region to the charming, traditional baseball park. (Locals so loved the DAP that the Bulls feared they would not accept the new, larger DBAP (Durham Bulls Athletic Park), when it was opened in 1995).

Over the years, the Durham Bulls have been affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds (1936-40), the Brooklyn Dodgers (1941-47), the Detroit Tigers (1948-61), the National League expansion team Houston Astros (1962-66), the other National League expansion team New York Mets (1967-69) and the Philadelphia Phillies (1969-72). The Bulls' longest relationship (to date) was with the Atlanta Braves, starting in 1980 and ending in 1996, when the Bulls were granted a Triple-A franchise with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a team in the International League.

Other historic moments over the years included:

Minor leagues expert Lacy Lusk told HowStuffWorks that the Durham Bulls were among the early leaders of the modern-times minor league "boom." "The Bulls -- even before the movie "Bull Durham" came out -- were a popular team. Since the same players rarely stay with a team for more than a couple of years, loyalty should definitely be built up around the brand, the ballpark or simply the entertainment value of the game," he said. "Winning and losing has little to do with a minor league team's success at the gate, and the Bulls' operators understand that. With a new ballpark and their name recognition, the Bulls have been one of the teams at the front of the minor league boom we're still experiencing."

As we mentioned earlier, the major league club's player development goals must co-exist happily -- and profitably -- with the local owners and operators of a minor league club. According to Bulls' assistant general manager Mike Birling, who works with general manager George Habel to handle the team's business affairs, there is clear delineation between what the major league affiliate does and what the local administration does. There are also some areas of shared responsibility.

Baseball is the Thing

An important -- and little known -- point to make is that the major league organization makes all the decisions about who plays for each minor league team for the season. The process to determine which players will report to which team is intense, wrapping up after six or more weeks of play and discussion at spring training camps.

That's why, Bulls Community and Public Relations Director Brian Crichton says, the main office in Durham didn't have their final roster of players until the teams broke spring training camp in Florida. "We have a list of about 30 players who are likely to come here," he reported in late March. "But we won't know exactly which 24 players will be here until the last minute. The Devil Rays make all the decisions about who comes, goes and gets moved up through the system." (Baseball "wives" are familiar with this aspect of professional baseball -- with packing for unknown destinations and waiting for the word while staring at two or more possible routes drawn out on a map!) Read more about how these assignments work in the Durham Bulls' transaction glossary.

The major league club director of player development also assigns the manager, who runs the team, coaches, who work with players on hitting, pitching and catching skills, and trainers, the guys who help keep the players healthy and in good shape. (In many organizations, managers and coaches also work their way up through the minors to the majors.) The Devil Rays have sent Bill Evers to Durham as manager this season -- his fifth season with the Rays and his third with Durham.

Major league clubs keep close watch on their farm teams, sending scouts and front-office staff to watch games and keep stats on players -- all of which contributes to the future progression of the players. (Other teams also send scouts to check out young players they might be interested in picking up when their contracts are up and they're available as free agents.)

It's Also a Business!

One of the reasons the Durham Bulls -- often held up as a textbook example of how a minor league baseball team can succeed -- have done so well is that owners like Wolff and Goodmon have carefully marketed the team and not the individual players. That's why local folks have continued to be loyal Bulls fans no matter which players are around or with which major league team the Bulls are affiliated. They also understand that running a baseball team is a business -- a different kind of business, but still a business, Birling said.

"What successful business people like Miles Wolff and Jim Goodmon understand is that a minor league baseball game has to offer the kind of entertainment that can compete with the wealth of entertainment choices people have today," Birling said. "Our mission to provide the finest in entertainment for the family and people of all ages."

That's why Crichton and his staff pull out all the stops at home games. It's not just a ball game (although that's why many people are there) -- it's nine innings of flashy, family entertainment.

For example, the first home game of the 2000 season, the U.S. Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, helped the Bulls start their quest for a third straight South Division title by landing on the field and delivering the official game ball to ceremonial first pitch guest Wade Boggs, a future hall-of-famer.

And there's more: Later in the season, an American bald eagle named Challenger, who'd been injured and was rescued by a local man, swooped down from a nearby office building to land on his trainer's arm just in time for the last note of the National Anthem. "People really love this -- it's great for the kids and contributes to the patriotic feeling people get when they watch our national pastime," Crichton says.

During every game, a lucky child is selected to "run with the bull" -- that is, to race Wool E. Bull around the bases. (Funny, how the kid always wins!) Participation is big at the DBAP -- if it's your birthday, you may be asked to stand on top of the dugout and lead the crowd in its traditional 8th inning rendition of "YMCA."

And you never know when Scout the Bat Dog (she's a real dog and she really carries bats) might put in an appearance or when Wool E. will break out his 6-horsepower Briggs & Stratton-powered go-cart and race across the field to give the youngsters a thrill. He may also sign autographs in the Ballpark Corner Store or make an appearance at the complex's playground, where children romp in the ball pit or on the slides while their parents watch them and enjoy a good view of the game at the same time.

The 10,000-seat park, designed by HOK Sport, the same group that designed Baltimore's beautiful Camden Yards, offers several different venues from which to watch the game:

Another important part of the overall experience at the DBAP is the food -- even opposing teams can't wait to play there. Hot dogs, burritos, ice cream, nachos, pizza, cotton candy, barbecue, fried dough -- you name it, you can find it there. There are more than a dozen concessions stands and several free-standing concession carts, operated by more than 100 local vendors.

Show Me the Money!

There are three main sources of revenue for a minor league team, according to Birling:

Major business expenses include rental of the ballpark (owned and maintained by the city), player-related expenses, payroll for around 100 employees (office, promotional, field, parking staff) on any given game day, National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues dues, and ticket taxes.

The Devil Rays negotiate and pay player salaries, and the Durham Bulls participate with them in paying for bats, balls, equipment and uniforms. Since umpires must remain neutral, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues trains, assigns and pays umpires.

The life of a minor league baseball player revolves around practice, games, meals, sleep and travel. It's a scramble to make time for their families or for other interests. In the case of the Bulls, Birling and his staff have arranged for most of the players and their families to live in the same apartment complex during the season. That way, they can share rides, and families can provide support systems for each other when the players are on the road.

Most wives don't try to work regular jobs during the season -- both because of their husbands' erratic schedules and because they're usually only in town for the season, returning to their homes in other states until spring training rolls around again.

For practical and team-building reasons, each baseball team travels together (on buses or planes) to away games. Every baseball organization has a different attitude towards families; some encourage wives to travel to away games, while others consider families distracting and prefer that they stay home -- or, if they come to away games, at least stay in a different hotel!

According to Crichton, Durham Bulls' CEO and president (Jim) Goodmon extends the family-friendly atmosphere at the ballpark to players and their families as well. In addition to having players meet the public and booster club members and sponsors, the Bulls also organize team gatherings and socials. And main office staff try to act as a resource for the kinds of questions new arrivals might have about the community.

One special event that was particularly successful last season will be repeated this year: Players' wives will don their husbands' uniforms and run a silent auction of baseball memorabilia on the concourse. (The benefits go to the Durham Bulls Youth Athletic League, a collaboration between the city Parks and Recreation Department and the Bulls. In this program, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are brought together for soccer and baseball. These kids are recognized on a special night each season, when they are able to hang out with the players and other Bulls' staff.)

Working at the Ballpark

Crichton, who works at marketing the team year-round, represents dozens of local young people who -- once baseball season starts -- work as many hours as the players. "A lot of people talk to me about how glamorous my job must be. And I do love it -- but they're not thinking about the fact that, on game days, we may be here 20 hours before we can go home. Then we get up and do it again the next day," he said. "We do it because we love it and we want to do a good job, but it's also a difficult time in terms of relationships in our lives and other interests."

Also a fixture at the DBAP is head groundskeeper Kevin Robinson. Robinson, who studied agronomy with a specialization in turfgrass management at North Carolina State University, may not be well known to baseball fans, but his work speaks for itself and makes him popular with the players. "The condition of the field greatly affects the game. The main goal of my job is to create a safe field, where injuries are not caused by the playing surface, and a good playing field. Communication with the players is very important -- they let me know how they like the field and I do my best to accommodate them," he said.

Robinson works on the ball field year-round. Obviously, things intensify when the season begins each spring. On those days, he's at the park by 6 a.m. or so, doing maintenance on the field, making some last minute improvements after practice and just before game time and usually wrapping up -- on a good day -- at around midnight.

DBAP ranks among Baseball America's list of the top five minor league ballparks in the country. What makes a good park? Its "play-ability," Robinson said. The process of reaching maximum "play-ability" (meaning that when a ball hits the infield, it has a "good roll" on it and takes no "bad hops") as well as creating an aesthetically pleasing park is complex and time-consuming.

For example, the correct turfgrass species for the appropriate region of the country must be determined. The DBAP has Bermuda 419 and Robinson overseeds it every fall with a perennial ryegrass to maintain a green, well manicured field year-round. The trick, he said, is a smooth transition from the ryegrass, which dies out in early summer, to the Bermuda grass, which comes out of dormancy at about the same time.

And speaking of grass: Have you ever noticed the patterns of light and dark stripes in the grass on the baseball field? Robinson explained that the effect is actually caused by the combination of a reel mower with rollers laying the grass in different directions and the reflection of sunlight off the blades of grass. "Where the pattern is a lighter shade of green, sunlight is reflecting off the leaf blade surface," he said. "Where it's darker green, the sunlight is reflecting off only the tips of the leaf blades."

Underneath the grass is a custom-designed system called Prescription Athletic Turf (PAT). This system (tailored to each park's soil, field layout, existing materials, etc.) provides maximum drainage by using 100 percent sand as the subsoil; this helps to decrease the number of rain-outs. "It eliminates some problems but creates others and makes the entire turfgrass system more delicate and harder to maintain," Robinson said. "The nutrients and water needed by the plants are not held by the sand -- they leach through the soil profile. But if you save games that would have otherwise been cancelled, it is worth it."

One of the most difficult aspects of caring for the baseball field is dealing with rain. When it becomes clear that rain is going to threaten the completion of a game, Robinson, his crew and about 15 other front-office employees pull out the "tarp." The unfolding of this heavy 170 foot by 170 foot vinyl tarp is, in itself, quite a spectacle. There's a trick to unrolling the heavy tarp smoothly without getting caught under it and being buried by your fellow rollers, he grinned.

If you would like to learn more about minor league play or locate the minor league baseball team nearest you, check out the official site of Minor League Baseball! And if you're lucky enough to have a minor league team in your hometown, go out, soak up the atmosphere and support the team -- they may be the major league stars of the future!

For much more information, check out the links on the next page.