Independent teams promote independence

~ Teams keep baseball fun with fan-friendly promotions.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Few 37-year-olds have made the jump from slow-pitch softball to professional baseball, but Sean Fields can say he got his shot.

The information technology specialist leapt for the skies during the fifth inning of a Sioux Falls Canaries preseason game, but the fly ball soared past his outstretched glove and cleared the loaded bases.

The official scorer flashed a terse "E-9," but the crowd remembered that Fields was one of them -- playing as part of a fan-friendly promotion common in the independent baseball leagues.

"Right off the top of my glove," said Fields, a season ticket holder for seven years. "If I was two inches taller, I would have had it."

Owners of nonaffiliated teams such as the Canaries say wacky promotions make baseball fun -- just the type of antics that don't fly when Major League Baseball is your boss.

Mike Veeck, son of legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck and architect of the infamous Disco Demolition Night in 1979, learned that lesson again in 1991.

Veeck tried to insert 68-year-old Minnie Minoso in the lineup for his Miami Miracle minor league club. The stunt would have let the former Chicago White Sox fan favorite play professional ball in six consecutive decades, but Major League Baseball said no.

"The commissioner's office sent a representative to Pompano Beach to explain to me that playing Minnie Minoso in an A ball game would make a mockery of the grand ol' game," Veeck recalled.

Three months later, Miles Wolff called Veeck and invited him to help start the first independent baseball league in nearly 50 years.

As owner of the Northern League's St. Paul (Minn.) Saints, Veeck gave Minoso an at-bat in 1993 and another in 2004, extending his streak to seven decades. In 1997, Veeck helped Ila Borders become the first woman to pitch in a regular-season professional game.

"That's what I love about it," Veeck said. "We don't have to ask farm directors, we don't have to beg commissioners' offices. We were free to experiment and try things."

Wolff and Veeck again are working together as part of the new American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which debuts this weekend.

It's made up of some former Northern League teams -- the Canaries, Veeck's Saints and teams from Sioux City, Iowa, and Lincoln, Neb. -- and Central League squads from Pensacola, Fla., Shreveport, La., and Coastal Bend, El Paso and Fort Worth in Texas. An expansion franchise from St. Joseph, Mo., rounds out the list.

Time to go

Wolff, the American Association commissioner, said he knew it was time to leave the Northern League in 2002 when he looked around a meeting and saw seven lawyers in the room.

"When we started the Northern League it was fun. Everyone was in it together," Wolff said. "It sort of became a lot more corporate toward the end."

Not every promotion has worked.

Veeck's Vasectomy Night planned for Father's Day was snipped before game time, and an experimental rule that gave pitchers just 20 seconds to deliver the next pitch was abandoned within two weeks.

But fans in St. Paul love a pig that carries baseballs to the home plate umpire and a Catholic nun who gives massages in the stands.

Veeck says Major League Baseball has even taken a few ideas from the independents, such as letting kids run the bases after games. "The Major Leagues said that's bush. Now they all do it," he said.

Veeck, who has ownership interest in three independent and three Class A teams, said he'd sell his affiliated clubs in a heartbeat if he had to choose between the two circuits.

"I am a theater operator with those three clubs," Veeck said of the affiliated teams. "You send me the reels and I play the movies. I sell the popcorn, the food, and I try to help people have a good time. But when it comes to baseball, nobody wants to know nothing from me."

Managers of independent teams also like not having a parent club call the shots -- such as which players make the lineup and how many innings they're in for.

"You get to pick your own players," said Canaries skipper Mike Pinto. "You're focused on building a winning team, not necessarily development."

American Association players make a minimum of $800 per month, and teams carry up to 22 players within a $100,000 salary cap for the season.

The roster mandates a minimum of five rookies and a maximum of four veterans. Limited service players are designated LS-1, LS-2, LS-3 and LS-4, based on years played, and one must be an LS-1 and only four can be LS-4s.

Wolff said the structure gives each team a chance to reach the playoffs.

"Every team should have a chance to win the pennant if they're smart," Wolff said. "The goal would be the smartest team wins, not the richest."

And because players usually are fighting for a chance to get back into an organization, they give their all, owners and coaches say.

Canaries president John Kuhn said eventully, all players who come to an independent team want to move on, and that's fine.

When a big league club wants to buy out a player's contract, an independent team needs to let that player pursue his dreams, Kuhn said. If the Saints' Kevin Millar never had left St. Paul, he never would have won a World Series with the Red Sox.

"If someone calls and says we need your shortstop, we let them go," Kuhn said. "That's just a deal you make with the kid. We will not stand in your way."

Players also are encouraged to bond with the fans. They're required to show up for two public appearances for free and get paid $25 or so for additional ones. Rotating groups of at least five players also must stay on the field after games to sign autographs.

"What I tell these guys is, that little kid who came up and asked for an autograph, he may never have gotten to a big league game. You're the big league guy for him, and they'll remember it forever."

So will Fields, one of the Canaries' guest right-fielders during the recent exhibition game.