Reading this brought bag some fond memories, as I actually played in several of those teams.......Spokane Indians, Tulsa Drillers when it was at the fairgrounds, Little Rock against the Travelers, Jackson MS mets. One thing of note about the bouncing up and down thing........my 2nd yr in AA I made a whopping $1400 gross per month. Out goal was obviously to make it to the big leagues, but even if you spent one inning in the show, whether it be on the field, bull pen, dugout, or whatever, if you got sent back down to the minor leagues you had to make a guaranteed 1/2 the major league minimun salary, which at that time IIRC was $100,000. That was huge money to a career minor league guy.
There is great talent at the AA level, just a notch below big league level in a lot of cases, and a slew of them did make it. Good ting about watching this class of baseball is that the players are still busting their assses when they're on the field, unlike the lazier, guaranteed big money big leaguers who make a half-assed effort about half the time.
