Mud Hens, Coneheads and Spiedies: The Ways of Minor League Baseball
If it wasn’t for Minor League Baseball, I never would have seen the hot dog bun Jimmy Carter signed at Tony Packo’s in Toledo, Ohio.
That’s because when I ventured to Toledo in 2019 to see the Mud Hens play, my wife Fawn and stepson Oliver and I had to eat. And I knew, because I grew up watching M*A*S*H, Toledo is the home of not only the Mud Hens, AAA affiliate of the Detroit TIgers, but also Tony Packo’s Cafe, where one can partake of delicious sausages and all manner of Hungarian-American and Central European fare: Chicken Paprikas, pierogies, stuff cabbage, that kind of stuff.
Toledo native son Jamie Farr, who played Corporal Max Klinger on the long-running tv show, made Toledo/Mud Hen/Tony Packo’s boosterism part of his character’s schtick. The Mud Hens in the intervening years have reciprocated with Jamie Farr bobbleheads and that kind of stuff.
Only in America.
Minor League Baseball has been a multi-generational experience for me. I went to Minor League games before my first Major League game, and its charms hooked me.
When I was growing up in Arizona, it was before Phoenix got their Major League Baseball team, the Diamondbacks.
San Diego had the closest big league team, but I did get to go to the Phoenix Giants, then a Minor League affiliate for the San Francisco team of the same name. My godfather Jose took me to my first game, and I came home with a souvenir team bat.
When I went to college in Tucson, I lived across the street from Hi Corbett field, famous for its Spring Training location scenes in the movie Major League and home to the Tucson Toros, a Houston Astros affiliate. The cheap ticket and beer prices made it an easy place to hang out.
After college, I went to the occasional game, but in 2013, my family made it a part of our summertime travels.
Being Washington Nationals fans, we did a Northeast circuit road trip of their Minor League affiliates: The Auburn Doubledays, Syracuse Chiefs, Harrisburg Senators, Hagerstown Suns and Potomac Nationals.
The next year, we didn’t follow a team’s affiliates as much as we went up and down the Eastern Seaboard, catching games for the DelMarva Shorebirds, Wilmington Blue Rocks, New Britain Rock Cats, Connecticut Tigers, Pawtucket Red Sox, Brooklyn Cyclones and Aberdeen Iron Birds.
We’ve been at it every summer since (except in 2020 because, well, you know.).
Planning a Minor League Baseball trip is plotting a course through lands you may never have thought to see otherwise.
What business did I have in Toledo anyway? The Minor Leagues drew me in. In addition to seeing the Mud Hens and eating at Tony Packo’s, we also went to the world class Toledo Museum of Art, and caught a glimpse into the history of a city that was once an epicenter of American commerce and culture and still carries a pride for its giving the world the Jeep.
And there, under glass and on the wall at Tony Packo’s, was the bun Carter signed, and another one by Vice President Walter Mondale, just for good measure to hook White House ephemera fans.
Or New Britain, Connecticut, where we showed up for Frozen night and saw a not insignificant number of adults dressed as Elsa, and learned from a ballpark staffer that Free Bread Night was a thing there, too.
Or Dayton, Ohio, where in addition to seeing Roof Man bound the tops of the buildings surrounding the ballpark, we went to the Museum of the U.S. Air Force, ate at the finest throwback steak house I’ve ever been, the Pine Club, and learned more about the humble beginnings of such quintessential American figures as Mike Schmidt and Erma Bombeck.
It was our visit to Dayton that also probably propelled my interest in a documentary about an old Chevy truck plant-turned-Chinese glass factory in the Dayton area (American Factory — it’s on Netflix) by local filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert. Maybe I would have been interested in that movie anyway, being kind of a film nerd, but being there connected me in a way I don’t think I would have otherwise.
As usual when people write about baseball, I’m saying it’s not just about a game where someone throws a baseball, someone hits a baseball and someone catches a baseball.
I’ve been to places I never thought I would want to go, but am thrilled I did. I’ve seen up-and-coming players who went on to star for their big league teams (Aaron Judge, Scranton Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders) and I’ve seen Major Leaguers rehabbing or on the downside of their career, trying to gut it out. It’s been a lot of fun for a baseball fan, and that’s especially the case when you can get tickets behind home plate for under $20.
But all the other stuff going on is what makes it so much more than just a game: The racing Taylor Hams (Lakewood Blue Claws) and Beefs on Weck (Buffalo Bisons); the salute to beer vendor Tom “Conehead” Girot with his own IPA by Resurgence Brewery (Buffalo, again), the strange ad campaigns, like for submarines in Norwich, Conn., (Connecticut Tigers) the food I’d never heard of, like Spiedies (Binghamton Mets.)
The Minor League game has changed. Major League Baseball flexed its muscle and asserted control over the sprawling Minor League system, yanking its affiliation with several clubs and reducing the overall number of teams. Some of the quirk has been lost, although many of the smaller teams have rebounded by rebranding themselves in independent leagues, so who knows, maybe the Frederick Keys or Trenton Thunder could even get weirder. I intend to find out.
The upshot is that each place has its stories that go beyond the pastime itself. Yes, I learned about the longest professional baseball game ever (Pawtucket, 33 innings); I also found out how dedicated GWAR fans can be to the GWAR-BQ in Richmond when we crashed at the same hotel after a Flying Squirrels homestead.
That’s no minor thing.
Recommend If You Like is not owned or funded by a billionaire or even a millionaire. We do have a Patreon. Even sites owned by billionaires and millionaires have Patreons so please don’t hold that against us. And we’re paying all of our writers, photographers and graphic designers. So please consider our Patreon. If you can't afford to become a patron, please sign up to our mailing list. It's free and we're asking here instead of a pop-up. Pop-ups are annoying.