Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and Kevin Reichard are joined by Derek Sharrer and Sean Aronson of the St. Paul Saints to discuss the return of Triple-A ball to the Saintly City in this week’s Ballpark Digest Broadcaster Chat.
With the MLB makeover of Minor League Baseball for 2021, three teams—the Saints, the Sugar Land Skeeters and the Somerset Patriots—came over from the independent ranks. But both Sharrer, executive vice president and GM, and Aronson, VP/director of broadcasting and media relations, had both worked in affiliated ball before for the Goldklang Group in Fort Myers and Charleston. The chat centers on moving to affiliated ball—both anticipate few changes—and what it’s like working with parent Minnesota Twins with Target Field just on the other end of the Green Line from CHS Field. Both expressed their surprise when the Saints went affiliated—neither were expecting it and had frequently downplayed any such possibility, saying mountains would need to move for it to happen—and both expressed satisfaction with the working environment with the Saints in a wide-ranging chat about the 2021 season.
The Baseball Thesaurus term of the week: bang, as when a player wants to know when a game will be banged, or called, due to rain. This is anti-term, sure to draw some ire from Sharrer. This led to a discussion of the rain turtle, another baseball-only term.
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is the Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and the author of The Baseball Thesaurusand The Football Thesaurus from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is publisher at August Publications and Ballpark Digest.