Tuesday, April 28

Happy April 23. Your entertainment options for this evening include seeing the Biloxi Shuckers play as the Mud Bugs and basking in the confusion of the Hub City Spartanburgers' Wrong Sports Night. Welcome to the Baseball Traveler newsletter. Let's talk about Minor League Baseball.

Next week I'll embark on my first road trip of the 2026 season, heading to Joliet, Ill., to see the hometown Slammers take on the Gateway Grizzlies in an exhibition game played at the Old Joliet Prison.

Yes, a former prison. Inmates played baseball on the grounds of the facility from 1914-2002, when it closed. The Slammers, whose name was inspired by the prison, play in the independent Frontier League (an MLB Partner League). The team's ownership group includes Bill Murray and the father-son team of Mike and Night Train Veeck (the son and grandson of legendary executive Bill Veeck). Night Train (yes, that is his real name) serves as the team's executive vice-president of sales and marketing. 

The Old Joliet Prison once housed infamous criminals such as Leopold and Loeb, Baby Face Nelson, Sam Giancana and John Wayne Gacy. In 1980's "The Blues Brothers," John Belushi's "Joliet" Jake Blues is released from the facility at the beginning of the film.

Tickets for the game are sold out, but if you’re planning to attend then please say hello!

Which Major League team had the greatest Draft class of all time? MLB Pipeline's Jim Callis awards that distinction to the 1968 Los Angeles Dodgers, whose haul that year included Bill Buckner, Doyle Alexander, Tom Paciorek, Geoff Zahn, Bobby Valentine and three quarters of L.A's iconic 1973-81 infield: Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes and Ron Cey.

Author Eric Vickrey would agree with Callis' assessment, as an assertion of L.A.'s '68 supremacy is right there in the subtitle of his new book, "Before They Wore Dodger Blue: Tommy Lasorda and the Greatest Draft Class in Baseball History."

"Any way you measure a successful Draft class, that has to be on the top of the list," said Vickrey, speaking on the April 17 episode of MiLB.com's "The Show Before the Show" podcast.

"That class combined for more than 11,000 hits, more than 1,100 home runs. Those are both Draft records. There were six All-Stars that played in 23 All-Star games and nine guys that played in 10 or more seasons in the Majors. Those are all records. And by WAR, it was 234 wins above replacement and the next closest Draft class was like 40 WAR below that, and that was the Roger Clemens-Ellis Burks Draft class of the Red Sox [in 1983]."

"Before They Wore Dodger Blue" largely eschews statistical analysis, however, focusing instead on the people behind the numbers. Vickrey conducted nearly 70 interviews in the course of writing the book, which starts with the scouts. These "mostly anonymous men," working within a front office headed by Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and general manager Al Campanis, traveled the nation's highways and byways in search of raw baseball talent.

"There's no one left living from that scouting department at that time, but I was able to contact some of their children," said Vickrey. "Brian Stephenson, who's a third-generation Dodgers scout, was able to provide some information. Even talked to a couple guys, Pat Gillick and Joe McDonald, who were at the first Draft in 1965."

Tommy Lasorda, perhaps inevitably, sits at the center of Vickrey's book. He was the heart and soul of the Dodgers, an extrovert of otherworldly proportions with an appetite of epic proportions who served as a scout (1960-65) and Minor League manager (66-72) before starting his legendary 21-season run as Dodgers manager in 1976.

"Everyone [I interviewed] had a story or anecdote about him," said Vickrey. "He was a huge character, even going back to Rookie League manager. He was the same kind of guy, same big character, big personality that we saw later on. ... Bobby Valentine was really gracious with his time and he was, in many ways, a true protege of Lasorda. They developed a really strong relationship early on and Bobby, I think, later took a lot of what he learned from Lasorda."

Valentine, who transitioned to managing after an injury-marred playing career, was a key figure on the Lasorda-managed 1970 Spokane Indians. The Triple-A Pacific Coast League squad, regarded as one of the best Minor League teams of all time, consisted of a remarkable collection of '68 Draft class talent as well as notable selections from previous seasons such as Charlie Hough and Bill Russell. Vickrey dedicates the middle portion of the book to chronicling the season in full.

"I went back and interviewed a lot of these guys and asked them about certain games or certain things that happened," he said. "It's amazing how guys will remember certain key moments or big games even though it's been decades. For example, Bill Buckner broke his jaw in a collision with Lopes and Valentine that year. I asked Valentine about that and he told me how Buckner had his jaw wired shut, couldn't eat for six weeks but never missed a game."

Stories such as the above are interwoven into a narrative that culminates with Spokane's championship series win over the Hawaii Islanders, a powerhouse squad managed by Chuck Tanner that played in a Honolulu ballpark affectionately dubbed "The Termite Palace." Soon thereafter members of that Spokane team, and the '68 Draft class writ large, were making their mark in the Major Leagues. From Lasorda on down, it's quite a legacy.

"I think that any way you dice it," said Vickrey. "It's the best Draft class in history."

As I write this on Wednesday afternoon, the New York Mets have lost 12 games in a row. This matches the streak suffered by the Altoona Curve to start the 2026 season, as the Pittsburgh Pirates' Double-A affiliate dropped a dozen straight before finally notching a win. Everybody Loves Curve Baseball, so hopefully they’ll turn their season around.

In Minor League Baseball, even a routine foul ball to the right-field berm can result in flabbergasting chaos.

Willie Brazil, a Reno Aces account executive, does a great Mickey Mouse impression. 

Thanks for being here. Get in touch any time: benjamin.hill@mlb.com and please follow me on Instagram (@thebensbiz), X (@bensbiz) and Bluesky (@bensbiz.bsky.social). See you next week.

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