No Show
No Show is about the business of travel: hotels, tourism, technology, changing consumer tastes, the conference industry, and what you actually get for $50 worth of resort fees.
Hosts Jeff Borman and Matt Brown explore the intersection of design, architecture, place, emotion, and memory. When we travel, we pass through these intersections, supported by a massive business infrastructure and a fleet of dedicated (and patient) service professionals.
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No Show
On The Road With Ben Hill, Minor League Baseball's Storyteller
There are dream jobs, and then there are jobs like Ben Hill's. Ben's Baseball Traveler newsletter is part culinary adventure, part architecture column on stadiums new and old, part biography series on characters of the game, part observer of the wild and wacky situations that occur nightly in cities coast to coast, part troubadour of the joys and heartbreaks inherent in Minor League Baseball.
But where does he go, what does he see, what stories does he tell, where does he stay, how did he get into this business, and what are his favorite minor league team names? Oh, and why are travel and minor league baseball such a beautiful match?
To see more adventures from America follow Ben on Instagram.
Hi everybody. It's no Show with Matt Brown and Jeff Borman. There are dream jobs and then there are jobs like the one Benjamin Hill has, which are on a whole nother level. Ben travels the nation for Major League Baseball collecting stories about what makes minor league baseball unique. His baseball traveler newsletter is part culinary adventure, part architecture column on stadiums, new and old, part biography series on characters of the game, part observer of the wild and wacky situations that occur nightly in cities coast to coast wacky situations that occur nightly in cities, coast to coast. And part troubadour of the joys and heartbreaks inherent in sport. On a nightly basis, he observes exotic species like Danville Autobots, lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, pensacola Blue Wahoos, burlington Sock Puppets and, of course, the Rocket City Trash Pandas, among many others. His life should be a TV show, maybe one where he travels from town to town helping people, perhaps solving baseball-related crimes and, of course, showing us the real America that we're all part of. Ben Hill, welcome to no Show.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks for having me and thanks for one of the best introductions I've ever gotten on a podcast. That was impressive.
Speaker 3:Our entire purpose. Matt and I actually have this written into our operating agreement. The entire reason for the existence of this podcast is to make just enough money for the two of us to go do the entire Nippon League together.
Speaker 1:That's true. Still a goal, still a goal.
Speaker 3:We're really, really far from it.
Speaker 2:One step at a goal.
Speaker 3:We're really really far from it, one step at a time. Last year I completed a personal milestone and saw every major league park. I've been at that my entire life and this year finished up. The Cactus League got three to go in the Grapefruit, five left in Nippon. So when I saw a guy who's been to 200 parks around the US, it was impossible not to get you on here.
Speaker 1:Ben, how did you get into this business?
Speaker 2:This can always when I get asked this, it can turn into a long story. I'll try to make it fairly brief. But in 2005, I was, you know, several years out of college, had done some job in the education field teaching assistant decided I didn't want to do that was temping, just saying yes to anything that was offered me. And a friend of mine just gave me a call one day and was like hey, I got a job writing game recaps for a new minor league baseball website. We need more people to write game recaps. Seems like something you could do. And I said, yeah, sure, not thinking like, oh, this is my big break. Really thinking of it as, like this works out, it's something I'll do for a couple months before the next thing comes around. But this turned out to be, you know, minorleaguebaseballcom, now MILBcom, you know, the official website of minor league baseball. Such a thing had never existed before an attempt to have you know the entirety of minor league baseball, affiliated minor league baseball, you know, all in one place on the internet. So it was the minor league baseball website. And then at the time they were in the process of trying to bring um you know, all 160 minor league teams to get their own website, you know, under the same company umbrella, and uh yeah, so it was a big project.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know what I was getting into. I just wrote game recaps, season ended, came, came in the next year or came in the offseason during the days, because there was literally nothing lot of other stuff going on. And I immediately loved that because instead of just like a sports recap article, I could make jokes and cultural references and still have it under the larger umbrella of sports writing. And then I started hearing from teams because there had been no one up to that point who ever covered the industry and what teams were doing in real time. And I hadn't really realized this as I started a column you know, just like writing jokes and you know, trying to highlight weird giveaways and theme nights and you know D-level celebrity appearances and that kind of thing but I was like cool, this has a little bit of an audience and it's what I like to do better than game recap stuff.
Speaker 2:So I started a blog and really tried to establish that as my niche, just writing pretty obsessively day in and day out about just what teams were doing, and got full-time in 2009,. And then I kind of made the pitch that all right if this has finally turned into a full-time job. I need to visit some of these ballparks, more than just the handful I've been to around the Northeast, because I grew up in Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia area, and was then living in New York, or still living in New York City, and so the road trip started in 2010. And here we are in the year 2025. It took me many, many, many years to be like I guess this is my job. I guess this is my career. It just felt like this random thing that happened for so long.
Speaker 3:You mentioned the cultural connection and in smaller, more isolated cities and towns, minor league baseball is a piece woven into the fabric of the community, often the only show in town. The Yankees are a part of New York City. But New York City certainly exists without the Yankees Right. It's not a reflection of the other. City certainly exists without the Yankees right. It's not a reflection of the other. In what way do you find in all these towns the sense of dedication and belonging and the community that goes with minor league baseball, that is different than major league baseball that we all watch on TV?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it is often a real community-oriented gathering place. A cliche, a little bit eye-rolling, but that I've heard throughout the industry over the years is you know, it's the front porch of the community. And of course this can be different from market to market because you still have minor league teams in Las Vegas or Nashville and places like that where you know it's a little different from you know, minor league teams in these smaller towns. So you know it really varies on a case-by-case basis, but there are a lot of places where minor league baseball sort of puts a community on the map in terms of its larger recognition, just around the country. Really, like you have an affiliated minor league baseball team and in a lot of communities it's perhaps the best thing to do entertainment option.
Speaker 2:But regardless of what market the team is playing in, the underlying principle is the same. It's just a place to come and have fun, where I don't want to quite say that baseball is secondary. But the whole minor league business model is not predicated on being a huge baseball fan. Of course you're going to get baseball fans and people who love to follow up and coming prospects or who are just really dedicated to following their team day in and day out. But that's a minority.
Speaker 2:The majority of the minor league fan is just someone who wants to be outside with friends and family. You know, it's an entertainment business more than sports, and it's about creating an atmosphere that says all things to all people to the to the extent that they can. It's more just like wander around, you know, say hello to the mascot, get some food, watch some between-inning contests, et cetera, et cetera. It's just like a fun place to spend several hours and when a team has run the right way which I think most of them are it's a place that appeals to all people and, yeah, in smaller towns like that's the thing to do you know, on a summer night or a spring night.
Speaker 1:It's baseball's ace card. I've always felt, and there are ways, you know, purists be damned here, but there are ways in which I feel like Major League Baseball could embrace that more. You know, baseball has always existed, even back to its beginnings in the country, as an excuse to get out of work, go outside and drink beer, and I feel like if we kind of get back to that a little bit more on some level, I mean, I think that's why we're so drawn to things like spring training, so drawn to to the small stadium experience, because it provides exactly that just kind of a lo-fi, low key way to hang out. I just love it.
Speaker 3:I have friends who travel around seeing the Savannah bananas that's nuts, I mean they travel around seeing the Savannah Bananas.
Speaker 2:That's nuts. I mean they're an entity in and of themselves. At this point, you know, like minor league baseball but not like it. You know the analogy is Harlem Globetrotters with them and I think that's pretty accurate.
Speaker 1:You know they've gotten a lot of press over the last year particularly. Do you hear rumblings from other teams about them? Do you see other teams trying to emulate them? Do people complain about them? What do you hear out there about that model?
Speaker 2:You know when they come through and they often do stops at minor league ballparks and I think you know the teams who host them on those. You know barnstorming stops are at this point maybe not even surprised because it's going on, but going on. But the fact that they sell out immediately is a real eye-opener. That bam, you put those tickets on sale and a AAA stadium with 11,000 capacity is blink and you miss it. They sell out.
Speaker 2:I think there might be a little jealousy just because minor league baseball is about player development. So the players are employees of the Major League parent club and those Major League clubs obviously have very strict regimens and systems for how they develop their players. So what happens in a Savannah Bananas game just has no translation to a minor league game based on player development. So I'm sure minor league front office members, team operators, would love to inject a little more of that in-game craziness, but you can't do that when your players are property of the major league club and their primary reason for being in the minor leagues is to develop as players.
Speaker 2:Savannah Bananas are very good players and there's players who come from minor league baseball and there's also guys who get drafted or go into minor league baseball. I mean, they're a legit talent. Yeah, jesse Cole who runs the Savannah Bananas, I remember he used to come to industry events years ago the minor league baseball promotional seminar. He was running a team, I think, in Gastonia, north Carolina at the time and he seemed just like a sponge for information and for what teams are doing and you know he was familiar with my stuff and just the world at large. And so as the years went on and he developed that you know I haven't talked to him in years but I'm like man he really gathered a lot of knowledge and then applied it and created something totally new and unique.
Speaker 3:I was reading from UN tourism that sports travel is 10% of tourism expenditures globally. The sector is 17% growth from 23 to 2030. That's an expectation and it makes sense when you consider the breadth of the genre, everything from the Super Bowl to youth sports tournaments. But are minor leagues? Are they a generator of significant revenue and volume and travel business for hotels and buses and airlines?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I would say so. I mean not necessarily massive, but it definitely has an impact. In any city that has a minor league team, you're going to have players coming in and spending from the visiting team. Spending nights at hotels are usually a designated hotel all year long, and you know. So that is pretty significant in the smaller markets and there's definitely, you know, I know a lot of them. I don't know what they make up in terms of the overall percentage of fans, but there's a lot of baseball travelers out there and people who you know want to see as much of the minor league landscape as they can. So I'm sure there is, you know, tourism based on that as well, and you know hotel bookings and everything that comes along with travel from the fans end as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the MLB players association. The collective bargaining agreement, I think, covers triple a, but maybe not beneath that level in the in the provisions for what a club must provide for travel. Like you know, trips exceeding 350 miles must be taken by air and family-friendly accommodations and stipends and per diems and stuff like that. Do minor league team players travel well?
Speaker 2:better than they used to. I mean major league up through 2020, you know, minor league baseball was a separate entity with a working agreement with Major League Baseball and in 2021, major League Baseball took over the minor leagues and you know they initiated, you know, six game homestands. So there's less travel now because once you go on a road trip, you settle in for a Tuesday through Sunday series wherever you're playing. And, yeah, they increased the players per diems and also, I think, codified team hotels and stipulations for housing in general that previously didn't exist. You know you talk to players from 30, 40 years ago and, of course, they're kind of romantic about it, but sleeping on air mattresses and these crowded rented condos or staying at, you know, real divey hotels on the road, that aspect, which is you can see why it's a little bit romanticized in retrospect is is largely a thing of the past now, how do you get around the country?
Speaker 1:Do you, do you drive everywhere, or are you or do you fly? And when you actually arrive in places, where do you stay? Do you stay at the hotels with the teams, or are you managing all of your travel for this, because it sounds like you were just on the road for three months straight.
Speaker 2:I know I think I create the impression not really purposefully that I'm on the road more than I really am. I'm then booking and contacting teams about the next trip and it gets like all sort of crazy. Like right now, I was in Somerset, New Jersey, last night for a theme night dedicated to the podcast on part of the show. Before the show, my newsletter came out today with the recap of my night with the Iowa Cubs in Des Moines and I'm in the process of reaching out to teams in South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia about my next trip in like less than two weeks. So there's just this constant like bouncing around. But yeah, it's usually about a week a month. It's just that I get so much material and it comes out in different platforms in different ways that they're just always for like five, six, seven months straight. It's just material for me being on the road, but it doesn't mean I'm always actually on the road. Like right now, I'm in a little phone room at the MLB offices, which is usually where I can be found, you know, more often than not. And the trips themselves usually I fly and then rent a car in the first city I'm visiting and then return the car at the last city I visit. So pretty basic operation. I didn't even have a car between 2002 and 2022 living in New York City. So I was grateful for these road trips because they kept me driving a decent amount every single summer, Because otherwise getting a car in New York City after 20 years of not driving would have been a pretty tough re-entry behind the wheels. But yeah, now I got the 2008 Subaru Outback. So if something is within a reasonable distance from New York City I'll just drive.
Speaker 2:And the hotels when I first started and this was all a little more tenuous I was watching the budget. As much as I could I would contact the teams and say what's the team hotel? Because usually they would tell me the team hotel and say we'll get you the team rate. So that was important as I was trying to minimize budget. Now I'm not living like opulently, but now I'm just booking. You know we have to use the in-house Concur travel system, so now I go through that and you know and I'm, yeah, it's still reasonable. It's usually I'm staying at chains and we have a uh sponsorship with windham hotels, so try to prioritize those properties when we can. But um, yeah, it's pretty much what you'd call middle of the road.
Speaker 1:A big part of your writing covers the food options at minor league stadiums, and you've also talked about having celiac disease, and so at every ballpark you recruit a designated eater to consume the stadium cuisine that you cannot. What's the best stadium food and beverage for you and your designated eater? And give us a couple, like if we were going on a culinary tour and wanted to find something either that was pretty good or something pretty weird. What? What have you discovered out there recently that that we should check out?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's so much out there.
Speaker 2:Uh, I often suffer from a bit of a recency bias, and you know answering these questions because there's so many places and it all blurs together. So, speaking of recency bias again, I was at the Somerset Patriots in Central Jersey just last night and they had a phenomenal array of stuff. They have an alternate identity as the Jersey Diners, so they have the Jersey Diner burgers topped on a waffle bun and topped with pork roll and syrup, so that was pretty unique. And also a Patriot chicken sandwich that was red, white and blue. I think the red was red peppers, the white was mozzarella cheese and the blue was coleslaw with a food dye in it. But those are two great examples just from yesterday.
Speaker 2:Two teams in the Southwest that I think are both great, roughly the Southwest, but El Paso Chihuahuas are located right on the Mexican border, so you know a lot of their fans and game day employees you know actually live in Mexico. So you know the most authentic, you most authentic kind of Mexican inspired cuisine you can get in El Paso with the Chihuahuas. They have some really good stuff. Albuquerque isotopes the land of the green chili, is like their condiment stations, just have green chilies, like you can put it on everything, and they have an alternate identity as the green chili cheeseburgers and do a lot of other creative stuff. Rocket City Trash Pandas have made a point of you know rotating in and out a lot of like creative specials. I think when I was there they had s'more fries. It was like sweet potato fries topped with you know s'more toppings, chocolate and marshmallow and graham crackers. You know a lot of teams do kind of opponent dogs or you know hot dogs based on the regional cuisine of whoever they're playing. So you see a lot of interesting hot dogs go in and out.
Speaker 2:Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs are a team that has always been great I mean bacon-centric being the Iron Pigs but they're one of those teams that has like a separate standalone website, pigs Food Finder. Because they have so many options. They direct you to a standalone website just listing everything and, where it is around the ballpark, some really creative stuff in there as well. Yeah, so there's so much out there. Obviously, newer stadiums often do it better because the older parks usually weren't built with as much kitchen space and the ability to really get more creative. But any team with a new ballpark like I'll be visiting the hub city Spartan burgers later this month. And yeah, they're named the Spartan burgers, so they made it a big thing, like we got to have the best burgers, and apparently they have like a hundred 100 toppings available at their burger bar, so we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1:It's time for the lightning round. I'll start us off here. Of course, modern league baseball is the last glorious refuge of deliriously goofy giveaways to entice fans. I think you've written recently about the Shelbowski bobblehead and a themed Bob Ross night, and it sounds like almost every night during the season there's something like this happening somewhere in the country. What are some of your all-time favorite promo night themes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Bob Ross and Big Shelbowski were both Daytona Tortugas. Love that ballpark in Daytona Beach. It's actually the oldest ballpark in all of minor league baseball.
Speaker 3:And the Cincinnati Reds affiliate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a great one. I always tell people to visit Daytona when they ask for a handful of parks worth visiting. Yeah, they've done some creative giveaways. I feel like maybe giveaways aren't as wacky as they were a little bit earlier. I feel like teams have settled in on bobbleheads and a little bit more by-the-number stuff in recent years, for whatever reason. But you still get, of course, a variety of bobbling appendages beyond the head. You know, bobble arms and legs, depending on who you're celebrating. Quote unquote real hair bobble heads where the players I don't know if it's what is real, but you know the players have like hair if they're known for their long hair or a mustache.
Speaker 2:I think there was a Paul Skeen's bobble stash last year by the Altoona Curve the Altoona Curve the first game I ever attended professionally to go see a promo. I bring it up all the time because it speaks to the spirit I was really trying to seek out, but I went for their awful night way back in 2007. And the whole premise is just to be as quote unquote awful as possible and I love those just ridiculous concepts. And they gave away sporks when you walked in, just like a plastic spork. That's one of my favorite giveaways of all time, just walking into a ballpark and for no reason whatsoever, being handed a spork. They had an awful night. That was before my time. Their general manager at the time was a guy named Todd parnell and he did his gallbladder removed and he tried to give away his gallbladder like in a jar, but then I think that got nixed for probably pretty obvious reasons. But I think they gave away like photocopies of his gallbladder, of his gallbladder oh, wow, okay, that's a great match with s'mores fries night, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Given that there is actually a business going on here, do the guys from the majors, when the studs get sent down for for rehab or some assignment? Do they fit into all this wackiness?
Speaker 2:I'd say generally no, which is fine, but that leads to I love that contrast of, and again, recency bias. I was at the Somerset Patriots game last night and Marcus Stroman started the game. Giancarlo Stanton was in the starting lineup on his second game of his rehab assignment and there's actually a video from last night of me and my podcast co-host, sam Dykstra and Tyler Maughan singing the seventh inning stretch and Stanton is just like six feet away from us, like swinging a bat in the on-deck circle. I didn't even realize he was there. I was so locked in.
Speaker 2:But there's always that disconnect of like, whether it's just a regular player or a rehabber of like. For the most part those guys have to be pretty like blinders on. So of course they notice things, especially when you're a day-to-day player, but especially a rehabber, you're just kind of like I'm here, you know you can be friendly, stop and sign autographs. They often do, but you're not really being like wow, the minors, I kind of miss it. Everything I've seen with that is just like you got a job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, give me the hell back to the major leagues and it's like no, knock specifically on the minors. But you know they're obviously looking at their time in minor league baseball a lot different than uh, you know the fans who are going for something totally different, although when there is a rehabber of that caliber, a lot of the fans are coming out to see it and it's always a financial boost for teams, and I'm sure you know tourism in general when you can advertise that. The problem is you often don't have too much leeway for planning, so you often don't draw from too far away, but a fan who might not be thinking of going on a Wednesday night is like well, wait a second, let's go, you know take a flyer on a ten dollar ticket, though, and you might end up seeing marcus stroman and john carlos stanton yeah, yeah, I mean it's totally feasible, it happens all the time.
Speaker 3:I mean maybe not those two guys, but just in general, of course with 200, approximately 200 parks to choose from in the minor leagues, rattle off your top five. You mentioned that the daytona tortugas affiliate of the cincinnati reds. Uh, who's your next four?
Speaker 2:this can change by the day, but yeah, I'll put daytona jackie robinson ballpark so named because in 1946 jackie robinson played his first games as a member of the dodgers organization uh, at spring training in that ballpark and that's a. Yeah, I forgot it was a lightning round. I could go on and on and tangents about everything, but yeah, put Daytona up there. I always put Redding up there. Part of it's my bias as a kid who grew up in the Philadelphia area, just because they're a Phillies affiliate have been since 1967, ballpark built in 1950, great front office, a great you know, just great atmosphere at the ballpark, a mix of old and new. So I put that up there a lot. I also talked about it already, but I put El Paso up there. I mean I love its location, where you're literally looking into another country from beyond the ballpark, and really creative architecture throughout In right field. They have this like four level structure topped by the rooftop deck where you can see the game with an awesome view, and they have different bars and restaurants all the way through this structure, Because it's a small footprint for a AAA stadium. So they got really creative. They actually literally blew up City Hall in order to build that ballpark. The Chihuahuas, yeah. So the Chihuahuas, yeah, they had some might in that case. So you guys mentioned Asheville. I throw that up there all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm uh, I do like new ballparks but I ultimately am my fan's heart. You know, trend towards the classics and McCormick field is a hundred years old, now 101 years old. You know, I believe it's the only minor league baseball stadium that can say Babe Ruth played here. You know, I believe it's the only minor league baseball stadium that can say Babe Ruth played here. You know, there's just so many people who came through that ballpark through the years, whether as minor leaguers or as barnstormers. You know it's in this hilly area, it's just kind of nestled right in there. It's just got such a unique throwback feel.
Speaker 2:And I got one more Today. I say Toledo. I think Toledo is great. You know a lot of ballparks are the centerpiece of a downtown revitalization project and you know that can go in myriad ways. But if you want an example to me of like how successful that can be, like, the area surrounding the ballpark is called Hensville. The team owns a lot of the other buildings around it and so it's like taking an old industrial area with a lot of abandoned buildings and it's just. The whole neighborhood is baseball and there's such a vibrant atmosphere and, again, creative architecture and the way the ballpark is incorporated in the landscape around it and a team that has been around, you know, for a very long time and incarnate incarnations. So let's go with Toledo. But yeah, I can change this answer by the day.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the beautiful things about your job. Ben, thank you so much for being part of no show and uh, it's been a blast. We love talking to you and hope to see you soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks guys for having me and good talking to you, and I rambled on, as I always do. Once you get started, there's just too much to talk about.
Speaker 3:We'll hope to see you at a fight and Phil's game soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come out to Reading, beautiful place.