Sunday, March 16

It’s National Bubblegum Week, which gets me to thinking about that time I competed against Kurt Bevacqua in a bubble gum blowing contest atop a dugout roof in Staten Island. Welcome to The Baseball Traveler Newsletter. Let’s talk about Minor League Baseball.

When we last checked in with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, the New York Mets’ Double-A affiliate had just released their Bathtub Donkeys alternate identity. This tribute to an archaic and perhaps apocryphal state law will be complemented on the team’s 2025 promotional calendar by another, perhaps even more absurd, alter-ego:

The Southern Tier Spicy Meatballs.

"The primary logo features a meatball portrayed as an Italian gondolier on a bed of pasta making its way through a river of sauce with a baseball bat fork," wrote the Rumble Ponies in their press release, providing a perfect example of how, in Minor League Baseball, even straightforward descriptions carry a strong whiff of the whimsical. "The secondary logo features the baseball bat fork of the meatball bat gondolier with spaghetti noodles wrapped around the utensil."

That’s what the Spicy Meatballs look like, but why do they exist in the first place?

There is a significant Italian population throughout central New York’s Southern Tier region, of which Binghamton is a part. The Rumble Ponies specifically single out nearby Endicott as an epicenter of Italian heritage; this locale, along with Binghamton and Johnson City, makes up the Southern Tier’s “Triple Cities” metropolitan area. (From 1923-68, Binghamton’s Minor League team was known as the Triplets, a reference to the Triple Cities.)

"In the early days of Endicott, N.Y., an area known as the North Side was huge with Italian roots," according to the press release. "Many of the Italian immigrants moving to the region worked at the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company, Inc. However, many property owners would not sell land to Italian immigrants, so Endicott-Johnson purchased properties for their employees and along the cobblestone streets of Endicott grew the vibrant community of Little Italy..."

The Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company, established in 1899, was for a time the largest manufacturer of footwear in the nation. Company president George Johnson, known for his philanthropy and generally enlightened approach to labor relations, bestowed the region with six carousels between 1919 and 1934. These carousels, still operating, inspired the Binghamton Mets to change their name from the Mets to the Rumble Ponies in 2016. A Rumble Pony, you see, is a slang for a carousel horse. 

Despite the influence of the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company within the Southern Tier region, the Rumble Ponies have yet to unveil a footwear-themed alternate identity. For an example of such, one doesn’t have to leave the state of New York, or the Mets' farm system. In 2018, the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs (now known as the Mets) played as the Devices, an homage to the ubiquitous Brannock Device foot measuring tool that was invented in Syracuse.

As for the Southern Tier Spicy Meatballs, the aforementioned meatball gondolier will be depicted within a uniform featuring a green, red and white color scheme (in a nod to the Italian flag). The Rumble Ponies will adopt this identity from Aug. 14-16, in conjunction with the annual bazaar staged by the nearby St. Mary of the Assumption church.

Though it remains to be seen how the Spicy Meatballs will fare on the field, their mere existence has already generated plenty of online enthusiasm. No less an entity than the State of New York was moved to weigh in, simply tweeting, "This eats."

Mangia, mangia!

This is Josh Jackson, demanding a brief and momentary surcease to Ben's revolutionary progress in Minor League Baseball reportage. You know me as the host of Ghosts of the Minors, the segment on The Show Before The Show podcast that demands you find the real historical Minor League Baseball team or player hidden among a pair of frauds.

Last week, we stitched it all together with the Cynthiana Cobblers. This week, I ask which of these players had an almost presidential air on the mounds of the Minors of yesteryear?

1. Bob Risenhoover
2. Bob Eisenvelt
3. Bob Roosetaft

For the answer, tune into the next Ghosts of the Minors!

Greg Johnston, vice president of stadium operations for the Arkansas Travelers, has worked for the organization for 50 (!) years. His faithful canine companion, Dizzy, is about that old in dog years. Dizzy is a bona fide Little Rock ballpark celebrity, as he spends his days cavorting on Dickey-Stephens Park grass and his nights socializing on the concourse. The Travelers will play as the Barkansas Dizzys from June 10-15, donning uniforms inspired by “Dizzy’s ‘English Cream’ fur.” The logos were designed by local firm Eric Rob & Isaac, who also worked with the Travelers on their recently unveiled Little Rock Nine alternate identity. 

On five occasions this season, the Albuquerque Isotopes will wear uniforms that are part of their new City Roots series. Albuquerque’s "Duke City" nickname adorns the jerseys; the city was named after the 10th Duke of Albuquerque and its previous Minor League team was named the Dukes. The caps, meanwhile, feature a stylized 505 in honor of the city area code. There’s a lot of attention to detail throughout. As a representative example, consider this: The "state outline creates the interior of the zero [in the 505] and features the Zia sun symbol. … the Zia is a sacred symbol of the indigenous Zia Pueblo and is closely associated with the state of New Mexico due to its feature on the state flag."

Ripken, an enormously popular black lab who spent the past four seasons as bat dog for the Durham Bulls, unexpectedly died on Jan. 1 at the age of 8. Last week the Bulls announced that Ripken will be succeeded by Champ, his younger brother. Champ, age two, spent last season with the summer-collegiate Holly Springs Salamanders (who are owned by the Bulls). Ripken followed the same path, as he worked for the Salamanders in 2019 before moving onto Durham. Read more HERE.

And in other North Carolina Minor League bat dog news, the Winston-Salem Dash announced that Murphy will join the team for every “Pups in the Park” Thursday home game. I can only assume that Truist Field’s Hype Hens Chicken Coop will be off limits to Murphy. A dog in the henhouse seems like a bad idea. 

I have yet not seen the new movie "Eephus," but cinephile Sam Dykstra has. On the latest episode of The Show Before The Show podcast, Sam spoke with director Carson Lund about a Massachusetts-based film he deems "exceptional."

"Right up my alley," says Sam. "Small-town baseball. Fun cameos. Authentic in every detail. You don’t have to be from New England to identify with a lot of the themes and feelings of this."

The episode also features plenty of MiLB-centric banter between myself and Tyler Maun and that, too, is authentic in every detail. LISTEN HERE

Thanks for reading. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope to see you at a Minor League ballpark in 2025. I’ll announce my itinerary in two weeks. In the meantime, where are you going? Keep on letting me know, and keep on keeping on.

Contact Benjamin Hill

View Online

© 2025 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. MLB trademarks and copyrights are used with permission of Major League Baseball. Visit MLB.com. Any other marks used herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Please review our Privacy Policy.

You (dugout@mlb.com) received this message because you registered to receive commercial email messages or purchased a ticket from MLB. 

Please add info@marketing.mlbemail.com to your address book to ensure our messages reach your inbox. If you no longer wish to receive commercial email messages from MLB.com, please unsubscribe or log in and manage your email subscriptions.

Postal Address: MLB.com, c/o MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.