By Woodrow Carroll
Minor league baseball has been around almost as long as the game of baseball, and the word stability is seldom used in any discussion of minor league baseball.
If any community had a water tower, it may have had a minor league club, or, so it seems. It is fun, in a somewhat critical way, to look at minor league operations.
One club close at hand is the Joliet Slammers of the 16-team Frontier League.
The Slammers play in downtown Joliet at the DuPage Medical Group Field (Duly if you like). The edifice opened in 2002 as Silver Cross Field with the Joliet JackHammers of the Northern League as tenants.
From a fiscal and financial standpoint, the JackHammers were a bit troubled, and, after 2010, the JackHammers were out of business. Enter the Slammers of the Frontier League!
The Frontier League is made up of 16 franchises with the Slammers in the eight-team Western Division. The other division is the Eastern. The Frontier League has an international flavor with three Canadian teams.
Major League Baseball has only one team north of the border, the Toronto Blue Jays! In the eight-team Eastern Division of the Frontier League are the Ottawa Titans, Quebec Capitales, and Trois Rivières Aigles (Three Rivers Eagles), all in Maple Leaf country. Quebec was in first place through Monday of this week with a 21-5 record.
Through Monday this week, the Washington (Pa.) Wild things and Evansville (Ind.) Otters were tied for first place, in the Western Division, each with a 17-10 record, Schaumburg Boomers were in third place, 14-12, and Joliet Slammers were fourth, 15-13.
Other teams in the Eastern are Windy City (Thuderbolts (southwestern Chicago auburban Crestwood), Gateway Grizzlies (downstate Sauget, Ill.), Lake Erie Crushers (Avon, Ohio), and Florence (Ky.) Y’Alls.
For those who are a bit flustered in trying to keep up with the goings on in the Frontier League, for your edification, let us discuss the Empire State Greys to further confound.
To add balance to the Frontier League and make each division eight teams, the Frontier League added the Empire State Greys. The Greys have solved the problem of unhappy season-ticket holders. The Greys play strictly road games, and, to calculate the Grey’s winning percentage is easy. Entering this week, the Greys were 0-25.
Fans of the Slammers who want to cheer Joliet on to victory might consider the Slammers’ three home games with the Greys ,July 22-24. Good seats should be available for all three games.
The Frontier League added the Empire State Greys to make up for the loss of the Southern Illinois Miners and give the Frontier League two eight-team divisions.
The Southern Illinois Miners in Marion, Ill. was a franchise with an interesting history. The Miners joined the Frontier League in 2007 and all went smoothly early on. In the team’s inaugural season, the team attracted 259,392 to Rent One Park. It proved to be the franchises high-water mark.
In 2021, in what was the team’s final year, the season attendance for the Miners was 66,099. The 2007 schedule and the 2021 schedule each called for 96 games. The residual effect of COVID-19 may have hurt in 2021, still, interest in the Miners was down. It resulted in Miner’s ownership shutting the team down. There was no franchise move to a new location, or staying in place under new ownership. Just good bye, Miners!
The Slammers fared well last week with a 6-0 results and started with a home victory over the Washington (Pa.) Wild Things followed by a three-game sweep of the visiting Florence (Ky.) Y’alls and two road victories over the Lake Erie Crushers Friday and Saturday last weekend. The run moved the Slammers’ record from 9-12 to 15-12.