Also, did you see that Tom Glavine was nominated?  It seems a little odd to have a released player up for any sort of hardware.

Dave Weathers is the Alcibiades of baseball.

FYI: “independent minor leagues” is an oxymoron. If it’s minor, it’s affiliated. If it’s not affiliated, it’s independent.

Perhaps the more correct verbiage is to say that Rickey crushed the bush leagues, which is another way these leagues were referred to. Rickey basically invented the system of affiliation, which we now call the farm system.

Sadly, this confusion—independent vs. minor—persists to this day. I had a conversation with an owner of a Carolina League franchise, who referred to the Atlantic League as “basically sandlot baseball,” when, in fact, the players in that league play a much better brand of baseball, largely because they are much older and much more experienced. I held my tongue, but with a nom de guerre here, I can say: You’d think differently if you were paying their salaries.

The Miles Wolff version of the independent leagues (1993-present) has been, overall, quite successful. Wolff correctly saw that when the NAPBL capped the number of affiliates @ 160 in 1991, an opportunity for the indys to come back was born.

Since then roughly two dozen leagues have begun and about a half-dozen have “stuck”—the Northern, the Can-Am (nee Northeast), the Frontier, the American Association, the Golden, and the Atlantic—with a couple others in Texas (Continental, United) that have been hanging by a thread.

Many of the indepedent leagues folded during the depression, and the minors took a big hit.

If Rickey hadn’t created the system, and got the minor league teams under the financial umbrella of the big league clubs, the minor league system might not exist today.