No Minor Accomplishment: The Revival of New Jersey Professional Baseball (review)

In this book, New Jersey native Bob Golon provides a fascinating and insightful account of the return of professional baseball to the Garden State, beginning when the Trenton Thunder of the Class AA Eastern League arrived in 1994. Today, New Jersey boasts eight professional baseball teams, Trenton and Lakewood in the affiliated minor leagues; and Bridgewater, Newark, Camden, Atlantic City, Little Falls, and Augusta in the independent Atlantic and Can-Am Leagues. Golon devotes a chapter to each of these clubs.

Based on extensive interviews with league executives, team owners and officials, broadcasters, players, managers, fans, local baseball scholars, and industry experts, Golon concludes that owning and operating a minor- or independent-league baseball team is a risky business venture. Success requires inspired and visionary leadership; tens of millions of dollars for stadium construction and maintenance; the cooperation of financiers, politicians, and zoning boards; and shrewd, modern marketing and promotion strategies. Above all, the club must identify itself with the local populace and establish itself as a community institution. Golon explains that spectators at the games of New Jersey's professional baseball clubs rarely notice the extensive business operations that make their hometown teams possible. People attend the games because they want affordable, wholesome, family entertainment in a clean and safe environment. They are as interested in the between-innings antics of mascots and other performers as they are in the game on the field. The typical spectator is more a consumer of entertainment than a baseball fan.

Traditionally, researchers interested in the minor leagues have focused exclusively on the game on the field, chronicling pennant races and the exploits of great teams and players; or they have eschewed the game altogether for the daily operations of a minor-league club, the club's role as a community institution, or the minor leagues as an integral part of the fabric of small-town America. Golon successfully combines these approaches to baseball below the major-league level. He discusses the details of stadium finance and construction and the community politics involved in getting a ballpark built. Golon makes the reader feel like an official of a minor-league team when he describes the game-day routine of Brad Taylor, the general manager of the Trenton Thunder. After a morning meeting with staff, Taylor confronts a myriad of issues, ranging from sales and promotions to inspecting the concession stands, arranging pre- and postgame entertainment, and dealing with a major-league player on a rehab assignment, and the extra media, security, and transportation that entails. Golon delineates the many social, economic, cultural, and demographic issues that minor- and independent-league officials must consider to garner the support of their local communities. For example, the Newark team, in spite of former major leaguer Rick Cerone's dedicated leadership and the club's success on the field, did not attract enough fans to earn a profit. It failed to become a community institution because it did not win the loyalty of the city's large African American and Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking populations. The club in Atlantic City fared poorly at the gate because it could not compete with the casinos for the tourists' entertainment dollar. Fortunately, Golon never loses sight of the game on the field. For every team, he describes pennants won, key games, and outstanding individual player performances. In the final chapter of the book, Golon recreates the excitement that permeated the ballpark in Lakewood, New Jersey, as the local team, the Blue Claws, played in their first-ever South Atlantic League championship in 2006.

Golon asserts his anti-major league bias early, emphatically, and too often. In an effort to convince the reader of the high quality of play in the independent Atlantic League, he constantly refers to former major leaguers like Ricky Henderson and Jose Canseco, who performed there. These minor annoyances, however, detract little from this outstanding monograph.

Reading this book is as rewarding and...