Minor League Baseball reporting 2014

i haven't been paying much attention to the speeding-up rules, but mark appel was charged with two balls last night -- one for stepping off because of a jittery runner at first and one for throwing a wild pitch on his final warmup toss, which resulted in a violation of the 2:05-between-innings rule

not entirely sure how i feel about this one, but at the very least it captures triple-a well:

http://theclassical.org/articles/josh-lueke-and-the-ways-of-anger

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/milb-opposes-players-backs-mlb-lawsuit

Brand announced that beginning next year, he will petition Congress to add minor league baseball players to the list of 35 occupations not required to receive minimum wage or overtime pay as dictated in the Federal Labor Standards Act. If successful, minor leaguers would fall into a group that includes seasonal workers, trainees and babysitters —- likely dooming the lawsuit.

nagl

the rochester red wings were in havana as the cuban revolution began on july 26, 1960:

The Red Wings traveled to Havana for a series in late July that year. Before their game, Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban revolution, staged an exhibition game between a team of his supporters and a team of military police. Castro pitched two innings and helped whip the crowd into a frenzy.

The game stretched into extra innings, and at midnight the crowd erupted as the new day began. It was the 26th of July, a date traditionally celebrated as the beginning of the Cuban revolution.

Democrat and Chronicle reporter George Beahon, who was in the stadium that night, gave this account:

"Promptly at midnight, rockets in the background behind the stadium signaled the start of Cuba's first July 26 celebration. The Cuban anthem played and everyone rose to sing. At the same time, weapons inside and outside the ballpark began firing."

It wasn't simply a noisy spectacle. Bullets fired into the air must come down, of course. One stray bullet struck Red Wing infielder Frank Verdi in the head while he was warming up between innings. Fortunately for him, he was wearing a plastic helmet liner inside of his cap, otherwise he might have been killed. Verdi thought he had been struck by a baseball.

"Then I saw the bullet on the ground," Verdi later recounted. "It was a good size, a .45. It hit me right in the side of the head and took part of my ear off, then hit me in the shoulder. It really didn't bother me until an hour later, when I started to think about what happened. Hell, bullets were falling out of the sky like hailstones that night."

Havana shortstop Leo Cardenas was not so lucky. A bullet struck him in the right shoulder blade a few minutes later. At that point, both teams fled the field. The game ended in a tie.

more on the MILB players' case

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25231