In recent years, the minors have mushroomed. Teams are increasingly divided between "haves" (large-market clubs with state-of-the-art ballparks) and "have nots" (small-town teams with quaint but aging fields.)

 

The grassroots, small-market clubs are crowded out by bigger cities, which see a team as a prize that helps them look "major league." Waterloo, a working-class town and longtime home to a "farm team," has already fallen victim. It could not afford the ballpark improvements needed to keep up with the new order. But Burlington and other towns are fighting back.

 

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Our program contrasts:

* Nonprofit clubs, like Burlington, at one of the lowest levels of pro baseball, owned by their communities and largely run by volunteers who love the game.

* For-profit teams, owned by well-heeled fans who seek a financial return.

* A Mexican League team that unites towns of two nations by playing home games on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

* Upstart clubs in maverick leagues outside the traditional structure of the minors. The St. Paul Saints sell out their games, played nearly in the shadow of the Minnesota Twins' big-league stadium. Shrewd promotion helps, along with stunts that are too wacky for the majors — baseballs are taken to the umpire by a pig wearing a Saints' cap.

 

Check out where we taped in ten states and three nations.

 

We also visit towns deserted by the minors to explore what it means to lose a team. A newspaper editor said, "It's taken a little bit out of the heart of the community. It's not quite the same as it used to be."

 

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Baseball holds on, for now, in rural America.  Burlington fought to keep its hundred-year-old team when it was endangered by new, higher ballpark standards.  The town's expensive rescue effort drew on small-town pride and volunteerism — and a player from its past:  Hall-of-Famer, Paul Molitor.  He talks about why he flew to Burlington to donate time and money to save his only minor-league stop.

 

The tone of our program is partly poetic, largely whimsical.  The approach blends interviews and the musings of our on-camera host.  We feature owners, players, fans, sociologists — even the St. Paul pig — as we explore the bond between the people and their teams far from the bright lights of the big leagues and learn how that bond is likely to change as the teams change — or disappear.

 

It could be one of the last games, for at least a while, in Davenport, Iowa's Depression-era brick ballyard on the banks of the Mississippi (passing riverboats serenade fans with a calliope version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game.")  The ownership squabble put the future of the troubled franchise in court.  As the last pitch is thrown and the lights go out, it may be for one of the final times.  One town's loss?  Another's gain?  But what is won and what is lost?

 

We'll find out.

 

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© Steve Holmes Productions 2004

Overview

SIBERIA

Co-produced by Steve Holmes Productions & Iowa Public Television