Road to the Show

Myself and my baseball friends from JMU play the MLB The Show video game for PS3, and there is a special game mode that is titled, Road to the Show, where you start as a minor league player trying to work your way up to the big leagues through the different minor league levels. This is actually pretty similar to real life, because there is usually a 'road to the show' that takes years. 

As I talked about in my first couple posts, I played in Vancouver last summer, which was the short-season A minor league affiliate of the Oakland A's. The minor league baseball system is different than any other sports' minor league system that I am familiar with. The NHL and NBA have some minor league organizations, but the NFL doesn't have any minor league ranks. Minor League Baseball is a much larger, more complex operation that many people don't fully understand, so I'm going to explain the different ranks.

When any player gets drafted or signed as an undrafted free agent, they become part of that team's organization, but they don't necessarily play for that big league ball club. This summer I was drafted by the A's and became part of their organization, but I didn't play for the major league team in Oakland. Every big league team, such as the Yankees, Red Sox, A's, etc. have many minor league teams at various levels. The A's have 7 minor league affiliates, all in different levels (all teams have a similar minor league structure). A list of these teams and all other minor league teams can be found by clicking the following link: Minor League Teams. The A's minor league teams, listed in rank from the lowest to highest level, are the Dominican Summer League Athletics, Arizona League Athletics (Rookie Level), Vermont Lake Monsters (Short-season A), Burlington Bees (Low-A), Stockton Ports (High-A), Midland Rockhounds (AA), and the Sacramento River Cats (AAA). The team I played for last summer, at the short-season A level, moved to Vermont and their logo is shown below, along with the logo of the Burlington Bees, the next level on my 'road to the show'. The goal for myself is to continue to improve my skills and keep progressing through the minor league ranks into higher and better levels with the end goal of reaching the major league team. 

 Hope you all had a safe, happy holiday, and Happy New Year!