Willie Mays

[NattyBumppo'sRevenge]

Speaking of shorter baseball games.

A few hours ago, the Greensboro Grasshoppers had a perfect game going for 5 1/3 innings and the game was over in 1 hour and 45 minutes. I have to admit I was getting excited by the end of the 3rd inning. Ended with 3 hits for the away team.

Are the Hoppers a NY Yankee affiliate? The old G'Boro minor league team was.

I have an old Greensboro Hornets program with Don Mattingly in it. Jeter played there too but don’t think it was the Hornets when he played, maybe the Bats?

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Hoppers became a Pirates affiliate when MLB did all the reorganization of minor league baseball a couple of years ago. Before that they were with the Marlins. The Yankees dropped the Greensboro team (2002) the year before the Hoppers got the new stadium. A&T owns the old stadium now.

Wikipedia article is pretty good about history of pro baseball in Greensboro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Grasshoppers

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Speaking of shorter baseball games.

A few hours ago, the Greensboro Grasshoppers had a perfect game going for 5 1/3 innings and the game was over in 1 hour and 45 minutes. I have to admit I was getting excited by the end of the 3rd inning. Ended with 3 hits for the away team.

Are the Hoppers a NY Yankee affiliate? The old G'Boro minor league team was.

I have an old Greensboro Hornets program with Don Mattingly in it. Jeter played there too but don’t think it was the Hornets when he played, maybe the Bats?

It was fun to be tied to the Yankees in the 1990s as there was a good chance you were watching a future World Series winner.

[NewApp]

Hoppers became a Pirates affiliate when MLB did all the reorganization of minor league baseball a couple of years ago. Before that they were with the Marlins. The Yankees dropped the Greensboro team (2002) the year before the Hoppers got the new stadium. A&T owns the old stadium now.

Wikipedia article is pretty good about history of pro baseball in Greensboro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Grasshoppers

That's all I needed to know. Sorry to hear they aren't affiliated with the Yankees any longer. We used to get the Greensboro paper back in the day to follow the Yankees' box scores and to see how many HR's Mickey, Roger, or Berra hit the night before. The paper also showed a diagram of the HR Mickey almost hit out of Yankee Stadium, 565 ft still going up when it hit the façade. Heard Mel Allen announcing it on AM radio. WCBS, I think it was..

[fjblair]

By the time I was old enough to know what was going on his career was pretty much over. I sure wish I could have seen him play.

[Bootsy]

Jeter played in Greensboro the last season they were the Hornets. I remember being at a Bats game the following year (1994?) and their fan store had a Derek Jeter minor league baseball card for sale for $35.

I remember thinking that was too much money to spend on a baseball card. How many times I regretted making that decision!

[hapapp]

Willie's teammate, Orlando Cepeda passed away at 86, so close on the heels of Mays' passing.

https://www.mlb.com/news/orlando-cepeda ... YvGkRiLmug