THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: No Minors would be a Major problem

Our walk took us past an American Legion baseball game at Thorco Field in Coeur d’Alene the other day, a fairly normal sight for this time of year.

Of course, this has been anything but a fairly normal year.

We stopped briefly to watch a few of the at-bats, recognizing the names of some of the visiting players over the loudspeaker.

Then the walk continued.

But the thought stuck with me — other than a smattering of Little League games, this could be it for baseball around here this summer, at any level.

At the major league level, the players and owners continue to haggle over how long or how short this year’s coronavirus pandemic-shortened season should be — as long as 114 games, or as few as 50.

Both sides have good points, but you can only listen to millionaires and billionaires argue with each other for so long.

Besides, for us fans, it’s like the classic line from pitching coach Johnny Sain in “Ball Four” — “The world doesn’t want to hear about labor pains. It only wants to see the baby.”

BUT WHAT if there’s no baby?

At this point, if they decide not to play at all, many fans would probably just shrug their shoulders and move on to whatever else is going on.

I would miss it because it’s something on the tube, but I can get my in-person baseball fix at a much smaller ballpark.

For most of us, major league baseball is a sport usually viewed via TV.

Sure, you could go over to Seattle, sit in any of the 30,000 empty seats at Safeco Field and watch the Mariners, who are nearly two decades into their perpetual rebuilding plan.

At least they play in a nice ballpark — though the cost of tickets, parking, helmet nachos and rally fries, etc., will eat up a good chunk of your stimulus check.

What hurts even worse is it looks like there will be little, if any, minor league baseball this year.

That hits a little closer to home.

A FEW miles over that imaginary border line, the Spokane Indians are one of the more popular minor league clubs, and Avista Stadium is one of the nicest ballparks in all the minors.

You wouldn’t think sitting outside in 100-degree heat in August in Pasco would be much fun, but management put up a big sun block that makes it tolerable, and Gesa Stadium is a fairly new park.

Even the Boise Hawks do the best they can at decrepit Memorial Stadium, where the setting is nice, and the dog retrieving the bat is fun to watch — but they need to bulldoze the stands and start over.

Any of the other Northwest League parks are worth attending games at as well — the three in Oregon (Eugene, Salem-Keizer and Hillsboro), as well as in Everett and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Whoever built Volcanoes Stadium in Keizer probably kept the aluminum industry afloat for several years.

PK Park in Eugene has a roof over many of the seats, because apparently it rains a lot in Oregon. They play a lot of day games in Vancouver, so the roof there comes in handy as well on sunny afternoons.

Watching a Rookie League game in Orem, Utah, last summer was just as entertaining as watching a Triple-A game two nights earlier in Salt Lake City.

I hope to someday see the Missoula PaddleHeads of the Pioneer League play at Ogren Park in Missoula.

All have their unique qualities, and all of the teams are savvy because they’re competing for the entertainment dollar, so they do a nice job of keeping fans engaged during the game.

So while it’s cool to say you went to a major league game, often times I much prefer the experience of a minor league game — the tickets are less expensive (and usually way closer to the field), the food is cheaper, and the in-game experience is, in its own way, comparable to the big leagues.

Plus, it’s a lot quicker getting out of the parking lot after the game.

PROBLEM IS, who knows what’s going to happen to minor league baseball after this year.

Some of the better-run organizations and higher-attended parks like Avista could survive, which bodes well for the Indians, at whatever level they end up at.

But teams like Tri-City and Salem-Keizer could be kicked to the curb, or given the option to remain at a lower level.

Would fans in cities who are used to watching recently drafted college kids trying to take their first step toward the major leagues, still go watch if the players are still college kids, who may or may not move on?

Maybe. Some of the teams in the West Coast League, a collegiate wood-bat league, are quite popular in their communities.

Entertainment is entertainment.

So we’ll see.

It could turn out that our baseball entertainment options for the summer around here will consist of the local American Legion and club teams — the class AA Coeur d’Alene Lumbermen, the Northwest Premier club program, the Post Falls-based Prairie Cardinals AA squad; the Northern Lakes Mountaineers, a single-A squad with players from Lakeland and Timberlake High.

Plus, whatever other single-A programs in the area, and Little League programs, field teams this year.

If you’re a baseball junkie, that might satisfy you — for now.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.