Excellent Adventure Day # 77

If You Move it, They Will Come

Our week in the Appy League, which I’ve called our mid-summer baseball vacation in 1991, mostly featured short drives and it was less than two hours south from Martinsville, VA to Burlington, NC.

It became pretty clear early on in this stop that Burlington Athletic Stadium would be different than the others in this league: it was a sell out on Opening Night for the Burlington Indians, two skydivers delivered pizza pre-game and the grandstand towered over the parking lot in a way we didn’t see again in that league….but that was only the beginning.

The Trip

The Video

Part of what I’ve been hoping to do and, I think, getting better at as this series goes along is to provide some back story and context in the videos that our original footage didn’t have. Tonight’s video is a good example of this.

Baseball Today

Burlington switched affiliation from the Indians to the Royals in 2007 but otherwise minor league baseball has gone on at Burlington Athletic Stadium much as it had been over the years since our trip.

However, that may not continue to be the case. Major League Baseball is considering a proposal that would eliminate 42 towns currently in the Minor Leagues and almost the entire Appalachian League, including Burlington, is on that dubious list.

Probably needless to say, I think that would be very sad and a bitter irony that the league that has done as much as any to build community connections between its citizens and major league baseball over the years, would be completely gutted by a move aimed at saving a few dollars.

On Deck

Tomorrow on the Low Mileage Tour; it is the first of three straight days of two parks in the same day in the cozy confines of the Appalachian League, first Kingsport, TN then Bristol, VA from Tuesday June 25, 1991.