The days and weeks immediately following our season are always a time of change in our business.  People move on to new opportunities, most often by choice but sometimes not.  Teams and leagues make many changes at this time of year.   Everything from relocations to changing the colors or logos even sometimes changing leagues!  Minor league baseball has always presented an ever-changing landscape.  I don’t know that there will be many changes in the makeup of the American Association this off-season.  We had a year of great changes last year with the addition of Grand Prairie and Wichita to the league.  Both teams have proven to be very good additions to our league in their inaugural seasons in the American Association.   

As we enter into yet another off-season, it is a time for recognition and reflection in the baseball business.   We recognize the accomplishments of players, coaches, teams and executives who have performed well over the just completed season and we pause to reflect upon the season.  In doing so, we also have a tendency to reflect upon seasons past.

As I reflect upon the seasons, I have much to be thankful for.  We’ve crossed paths with many wonderful people over the years.  We recently received some very nice news about one of those people, Josh Buchholz, General Manager of the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks.  Josh was named Northern League Executive of the Year for 2008.   We hired Josh as a clubbie for the 1996 season when we were starting up the Fargo franchise.  He came into my office at the end of the 1997 season and reminded me that I had promised him an opportunity in the front office if he did a good job in the clubhouse.  So, we made good on the promise and Josh joined us in the RedHawks’ front office.  He served two seasons as the clubbie and has been climbing the ranks in the RedHawks’ front office ever since.  He was named GM three years ago….. and he is a good one!

I sent a message of congratulations to Josh on the aabfan / nlfan website and he responded by sending me the e-mail below, which, of course makes me very proud……    

Hi John,

Thanks for the kind words on nlfan.com.  I will always appreciate the opportunities you gave me, and still remember and implement a lot of the lessons you taught me.Also…you actually had me in the clubhouse for 2 summers…into the front office in Oct., 1997 (after I “reminded” you about our discussion)…hahaha.

The Fort Worth operation has also seen three people move on to the Texas Rangers, one to the Sacramento Kings and another to the Dallas Cowboys….   these folks were hired by our organization…. and we are proud of them too!

But not everyone who comes to work at the ballpark stays in the sports world.  There are so many other folks that move into “real life” in such a positive way.   One point of pride came to me in a message just a couple of days ago when one of our former employees (she started with us as an intern in Columbus, GA), Kristen Turner, was invited to the White House by President Bush in recognition of a program she started called “Operation Remembrance” (Memory Boxes for families of fallen soldiers).  She worked very hard fund raising, processing, sending the boxes. The boxes are a comfort to the families.  Kristen now lives in El Paso.  Her husband has done a couple of tours in Iraq and they are stationed at Fort Bliss.   Her brother-in-law was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and I was privileged to attend his burial at Arlington National Cemetery last year.

There are many more stories about many more people who are out there contributing both in the sports world and in other walks of life.   So many fine people have passed through our ballparks over the last 35 years.  Sometimes I feel like a dad with literally dozens of children.

JPD