(Editor’s Note:  Looks like Sonoma County is trying to bring back minor league baseball.  Perhaps the re-print of this story will inspire some action.  Good luck!)

By Jane Richard

‘Hmm, there aren’t many people here yet,’ I say to myself, ‘but then I am about two hours early.’ I whip my car around in a u-turn on the quiet side street to snag a spot across the road from the ballpark. No parking meters, no traffic. What bliss. The Giants are at home today, playing Pittsburgh, but a Saturday day game in their new home on the Bay — not the chance of a hot dog in Antarctica of getting a ticket. Could’ve had a spot third row behind the dugout in Oakland, but the A’s have the temerity to be in Chicago. Denied a big league fix, this junkie ends up in Rohnert Park — a minor league sanctuary just twenty road miles from my home in northern Sonoma County, California, but a thousand baseball miles from the major leagues.

I check my cap, grab my backpack containing all the baseball-going essentials: scorebook, mitt, water bottle, sandwich (so as not to have to leave the stands during the game), jacket and fuzzy warm gloves (cold nights are a reality of northern California baseball), and radio — and head across the street to experience the world of minor league ball.

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