A major deal for baseball fans (2024)

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack?

It’s churros and Dippin’ Dots — and occasionally even sushi — at minor league ballparks these days.

Your seat is less likely to be an aluminum bleacher than molded plastic with a seat back and a cup-holder — and there are luxury suites available for rent at the Lake Elsinore Diamond, home of the Padres’ Class A affiliate, the Lake Elsinore Storm.

The mascots usually have better name recognition than the starting pitchers, but that’s OK. The minor leagues are relatively nearby, inexpensive and all about families, with bounce houses and inflatable slides almost as standard as advertising on the outfield wall.

San Diego lost the Surf Dawgs, the team from the Golden Baseball League that used to play at Tony Gwynn Stadium at San Diego State, although the league hopes to return to the city someday.

And with a U.S. State Department travel warning in effect in Mexico, many people would think twice about crossing the border to see the Tijuana Cimarrones play.

But for a taste of baseball nostalgia accompanied by marketing that swings for the fences, the minors are the place to be.

A minor league ballpark is rarely a destination in itself, but instead a stop to add on to another trip. Lake Elsinore, 75 miles from San Diego, is probably not your idea of a weekend getaway. But if you drive up the coast to San Juan Capistrano and take the gorgeous but dangerous Ortega Highway through the scenic hills and canyons to Lake Elsinore and return to San Diego on Interstate 15, it can be an excellent outing. Just be sure not to traverse the Ortega Highway — state Route . 74 — at night. Not only might you miss the scenery, you might also miss a curve.

Forty miles from Lake Elsinore is Rancho Cucamonga, home of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Class A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels owned by members of the Brett Family, as in George.

It’s another 20 miles to San Bernardino, home of the Inland Empire 66ers — think Route 66 — a Class A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

You might occasionally catch a rising star, or a fallen one. Manny Ramirez rehabbed briefly with the 66ers last season as he prepared to return from a suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy, and he returned this season for a stint after a leg injury.

The big league of the California minor leagues is the Pacific Coast League, a triple-A league one step from the majors with outposts in Sacramento and Fresno. The Sacramento River Cats routinely lead the minor leagues in attendance, drawing more than 650,000 fans last season.

For the most part, the minors are less about the players than about affordable family entertainment and carefully cultivated baseball nostalgia.

Six of the 10 stadiums in the California League have opened since 1990, many of them influenced by the cozy throwback style made popular by Baltimore’s Camden Yards.

“It’s Americana,” said Charlie Blaney, president of the California League. “The prices are great. At most ballparks, you can get into the game for less than you can get into a movie.”

Tickets at Lake Elsinore are $8-$10, but don’t forget the $5 parking and the $4 hot dogs. You might want to join the tailgaters in the parking lot beforehand and avoid concession-stand prices.

Inside the gates, children can tumble and run on the open hillside in right field, giving their parents a chance to relax on the grass instead of worrying about them spilling a soda on someone in the row in front of them. Besides the bounce house and inflatable slide in the “Fun Zone” — free for the hour before the game on Sundays — youngsters at a recent game could roam a book fair when they needed a diversion from what, for the uninitiated, at least, can be a painfully slow game.

Planning any trip to a minor league ballpark calls for a look at the team website for the scheduled promotions, the lifeblood of minor league marketing.

The Yuma Scorpions in Arizona gave away 2,000 pounds of manure — also known as a ton of whatever slang for fertilizer you prefer. People were free to take as much as they can carry away.

“That manure is gone before the game,” said Kevin Outcalt, Commissioner of the Golden Baseball League.

The Golden League also has a bit of a curiosity this season: Eri Yoshida, a 5-foot, 18-year-old female pitcher who played professionally in Japan, has signed with the Chico Outlaws, a Northern California team.

Just don’t call the Golden League a bus league. It has the greatest road trip in the minors: Maui.

“I guess we could be a canoe league,” Outcalt said.