Brian Ross
Senior Editor
Minor League News

This is one of many emails that our reader services department receives:

SIRS
HAVE A WAGER..W/BUDDIES

HOW MANY MINOR LEAGUE CLUBS ARE THERE??
BY SPORT?
BASEBALL??
HOCKEY??
BASKETBALL??

IS THERE A SITE..THAT WOULD LIST ALL LOCATION OF THESE TEAMS??
THANKS--FYI YOU HAVE A GREAT WEB PAGE
TOM

Not wanting a bet amongst buddies at a Bud-ding beer company to go unresolved, our reader services department replied:

Subject: Re: Reader Inquiry

Tom:

The numbers change each year as teams and leagues come and go, so these numbers might go up or down a bit:

295 teams in affiliated and independent baseball
127 teams in minor league hockey
60 teams in basketball
124 teams in football unless you don't consider the AFL a minor league (we
do) then it's 108.

To which he replied:

THANKS!!!!
I HAD NO IDEA MINOR LEAGUE SPORTS WAS THIS HUGE.
TOM

Even if you're a fan of a particular league or your home town team, you may know very little about the minor league sports world, or the players who inhabit it beyond your own burg. You might think that college is the only developmental system for pro sports, or that other pro leagues are solely fly-by-night outfits that aren't "real" sports leagues.

What surprises most people? Discovering: That some of the leagues have been around for a century or more; That more than 77 million people attend some professional minor league sport; That minor league teams play hard all year round; That you sit closer up to better action for a fraction of the cost of a major league game during the regular season; That you connect back up to the passion of your sport.

Usually people "discover" the minors when they move to a town with a team, or when they want to know more about their major club's developmental system. Usually most people get hip to some or all of the world of the minors by going to games and listening to the regulars, who already know the ropes.

Here we offer our readers, veteran fans, and those who just stumbled in an opportunity to "get" the minors, the most exciting and rapidly-growing segment of professional sports.

Click on a topic, below, to learn more about everything from the basics ("What is a 'Minor' League?") to the fun stuff ("Minor League Travel" or "Beyond the Valley of the Hot Dog"). If we don't answer your question, drop us a line. If you have a good one, we'll answer it and send you a free "MAJOR ATTITUDE" t-shirt.

More pages to come in this primer. Check back daily through January 15, 2005!