I have gone to just one minor league game and I agree with you. It was a lot of fun with much more going on than just the game. The team was an A team of the Atlanta Braves. Several of the young players went on to join the major league Atlanta Braves.

There's an A level team in the area. Attendance is usually a few thousand in the rather old stadium.

I'll usually go once each season. It's hokey, I think intentionally so, but all in good fun. The stadium has a great BBQ operation along with good choices of draft beer to accompany the food. It's not cheap but it's excellent.

There are two major league teams in the area too, the A team is part of the farm system of one of them. The fans are devoted, that's for sure.

We have the AA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners about 15 minutes from our house. We try to go to a couple games a year, weather permitting. We try to stay away from promotion nights (fireworks, etc) as attendance is higher and they do some family friendly stuff. We just want to watch baseball!

We have AAA St. Louis affiliate in Memphis and AAA Milwaukee affiliate in Nashville but both are 2 hours away. Our closest MLB teams are 5 hours away.

We were just talking about this at lunch the other day. But nothing tastes like a ballpark dog and peanuts! They just don't compare elsewhere ;)

Yes! My father was a minor league player. My friend's family used to own our local stadium. Love love love the Nashville Sounds. We've done ok every now and again. I used to love major leagues games, but they're so freaking expensive. Not really worth it at all. Seriously. What are they thinking?

My dad used to take me to minor league games in Bakersfield when I was a kid. That was before the Dodgers came to Los Angeles.After that, he went to LA to watch baseball.Living in the Bay Area as an adult, I went to A's an Giant's games occasionally. Haven't been to Des Moines cubs games. I am a Div one college basketball fan.

I LOVE minor league baseball! Those guys are trying to make "the show" so they're working harder. Would rather see one of their games than a game of the majors.

DH used to take the kids...he traveled during the week so him taking them for an afternoon gave me a much needed break!

have been to only one, and must have been 9-10? I can't remember where the stadium was in los angeles, but if I recall it was pre-pre angels days? it was fun because my dad and I got to sit right in the front...

Live fairly close to 2 minor league stadiums...the Lakewood BlueClaws, a Phillies, and the Trenton Thunder, a NY Yankees affiliate.

Both of them are fun experiences. You get to sit very close to the field and if you love to people watch, as I do, it's a great place to be. Yes, food is not cheap, but I look at it as a place to be outdoors and get some fresh air while having a good time. The BlueClaws stadium is a particularly nice one to just walk around.

As a girl, my dad would take us to see the Peoria Chiefs play infrequently. Lots of room in the stands to let us play around within eyesight.

I'm glad I'm not the only one having this kind of fun. Ours is a AAA affiliate of the NY Yankees. I don't know what that means, but that's what the website says. ;-)

I grew up going to the Yankee Stadium, and had my wallet stolen there as a teenager. I don't know what tickets cost then, but it couldn't have been much because we didn't have much money as teens. Someone told me what major league tickets are going for today, and I was shocked.

Snidely, I had a decent beer the first time I went this season. It wasn't draft, and of course it wasn't in a bottle, but it pretty good. I think it was from Poland.

Linda, college basketball is the only other sport I've enjoyed as a spectator. I don't have many opportunities, but a few years ago I went to a St. John's-Duke game at Madison Square Garden, and that was a treat. Some years ago I used to catch Syracuse on TV sometimes because a local boy was on the team.

Eclair, good point about the extra effort made by the minor league players. I also like the way they toss balls into the stands for the kids. The majors might be doing this too; I have no idea.

Marciasc, I think we played a Braves affiliate this week.

Alisande, the minors are the "farm teams" for the major league teams. The lowest level is Rookie, and progressing on up it goes as follows: Short Season A, Low A, High A, AA, then AAA. After that, it's "the show" (the major leagues). Depending on how good the player is, he might start in Rookie, or he could start in AA, and some have even gone right to AAA.

When a major league team has to put a player on the Disabled List (DL), the team will generally call up a player from either AA or AAA (depending on the location of the team at the time -- home or away -- and how close to that location the farm team is. There have been times when a player has been called up from the A team to fill in on a major league team. And, of course, every minor league player's dream is to be called up to the show on a permanent basis.

Also, when players are about to come off the DL, they are often sent to the team's AAA team for some rehabilitation games before returning to major league play, so you sometimes get to see some really big-name famous players in a minor league game.

We live in a suburb of Sacramento, and there is a AAA team -- the Sacramento RiverCats -- which is part of the Oakland A's organization. The inaugural season was 2000, so this is their 15th season. Hubs and I had season tickets for the first 13 seasons, but we didn't renew for the 2013 season and didn't buy tickets for this season, either. I was one of the first 30 people who got to choose seat location for season tickets, so we had seats right behind home plate. Awesome seats. But Art Savage, the majority owner and CEO, died (age 58!) in November 2009. In our opinion, the organization changed for the worse after his death. Art's goal was for everyone to have a good time when they came to a game, and he wanted the ballpark to be a place where a family could afford to come more than just once or twice a season. After his death, it seemed that monetary profit was the name of the game, and fan loyalty was disregarded.

Major league players who made rehab appearances at Raley Field (the name of the ballpark where the RiverCats play) include Curt Schilling, Mike Piazza, and Manny Ramirez. RiverCats who went on to make a name for themselves in the major leagues include Dallas Braden, Eric Byrnes, Andre Ethier, Aaron Harang, Houston Street, Kurt Suzuki, and Barry Zito. There are more, of course, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

We've all heard about the huge salaries that some of the major league players earn. But minor league players are very poorly paid. The major league team pays the salaries of the minor leaguers (they "own" them). So most minor leaguers have another job during the off season (e.g., teacher, fireman, insurance salesman, etc.). Several minor league players have filed a lawsuit against some of the major league teams, because they are paid less than the federal poverty level.

The salary of a minor league player goes up depending on how much time he has spent at that level. For example, a player in his first year in Rookie or Short Season A will earn $1,150 per month, and it goes up $50 a month for each additional season at the same level. Low A and High A start at $1,300 and $1,500 per month, respectively, and increase by $50 per month for each additional season at the same level. Players at the AA level start at $1,700 per month and it goes up by $100 per month for additional seasons, while players in AAA start at $2,150 per month for their first year, going up to $2,400 per month their second year and $2,700 per month their third year.

But, bear in mind that they only earn that monthly salary during the baseball season, which for minor leaguers is about 5 months per year. They also get $25 per day for meals when they are on the road, and they have to pay for meals in the clubhouse after every game.

And the low minor league salary is what makes it so important for a minor leaguer to be called up, even if all he does is warm the bench. Once a player has been "up to the show," his salary will be much higher for the remainder of the season. This is where the 25-man roster and 40-man roster come into play, but I won't explain all of that here...

And once a player makes it onto a major league team, his minimum salary will be $500,000 per year. Not bad for playing a game they love, eh?

During the time we had our season tickets, we got to know a lot of the RiverCats. It means so much to the players when there are a lot of fans at the games. They definitely hear the crowd and the cheers. We even went on a lot of road trips with the team. No, we didn't officially travel with the team, but, yes, there were times when we'd be on the same flight. We would stay at the same hotels as the team (and pretty much every hotel would give us a big discount when they found out we were there to support the team). And the players always put us on the "comp list" so we'd get into the games for free. And there were several other folks who would go on the road trips, too. Some would only go to the games that were within driving distance (like from Sacramento to Reno, or to Fresno), but others would fly to where the team would be playing (Tacoma, Portland, Las Vegas, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Memphis, Nashville, etc.). We would always whoop and holler and cheer like crazy so our players would hear us. It was a ton of fun.

Here's a photo I took from my seat during a game back in September 2004. The rows in front of us were owned and controlled by Art Savage, and he would have some of the starting pitchers sit there and chart the game. One would score the game just like any fan would do, one would chart the pitches (speed, type of pitch, where it ended up [98 mph fastball, ball, high outside to the right; 82 mph curveball, strike]) and one would sometimes chart the other team's pitches. One of the guys would always be the next game's starter. Anyway, the guys you see in the rows in front of me are three of our pitchers. The guy in the blue short-sleeved shirt is one of the aisle ushers who had just kicked some folks out of that row because they didn't belong there, and he sat for a while to make sure they didn't sneak back. Whenever Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A's) or Branch Rickey (grandson of THE Branch Rickey, and President of the Pacific Coast League) would attend games, they'd sit in front of us. So, those rows had to be kept clear because there was no telling when a VIP would show up.

Wow, Lindsey, you know so much about this! Thank you for vastly expanding my education on the subject. I'm passing on the info about salaries to a friend who asked me about this when I took her to her very first American baseball game this week. (She's from England.) I had no answer for her, but now I do!

So . . . do you do the players' family trees? :-)

PS: Lindsey's information explains how Derek Jeter ended up playing in Scranton one season.

We used to go watch the Lowell Spinners when we lived in MA and it was a fun evening...My husband is a real lover of baseball.