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Originally Posted by Pelican
That raises a somewhat unrelated minor league question. The 1932 Pacific Coast League has eight independent teams, full of some interesting players; although their OOTP ratings are low, compared to MLB - even for the best players. Yet, this is where all three DiMaggio brothers started, and Ted Williams. Why didn’t more major league teams scout aggressively and buy the better players?
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Before minor league teams started to officially affiliate with MLB teams, there were often unofficial affiliations. In addition, an affiliation - official or otherwise - was not needed for an MLB team to send a player to a minor league team for seasoning...
MLB teams did scout and purchase PCL players. Many examples exist, including the DiMaggio brothers. But this was affected by the various PCL owners' philosophies. Some preferred to develop young players and then sell to MLB teams for as much as they could get. Others liked to build their roster around former MLBers and other vets who couldn't quite cut in the MLB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelican
Did PCL vets resist coming east to play?
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Some did. Some simply preferred being stars in a (mostly) nice-weather league that played a longer schedule, where they could earn more money than they could being riff-raff in the majors...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pelican
I just have trouble understanding how the PCL managed to survive for many years as an independent, but AAA-level, league. I guess in the years when travel was by train, it just was not feasible to expand to the West Coast, and players there tended to stay?
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The PCL - even in its golden years - was not without its financial troubles. However, one huge advantage it had over the other top minor leagues - namely, the International League and the American Association - is that geographically it occupied a completely different area of the U.S. map. For many years the PCL functioned as a near-major league, whereas the IL and AA were clearly subordinate to the American and National Leagues.
If interested, I highly recommend Dennis Snelling's "The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957." You can likely find a free pdf of it online with a pretty quick search (it appears to be legit free, not pirated or whatever...). It goes into a lot of detail re the very things about which you are curious
I found it fascinating
