In 2021, following the COVID season in which Major League games were played in empty stadiums, the powers-that-be decided that minor league baseball was basically not worth the money. MLB cut 40 squads, dropping the total number of affiliated teams to 120.

In addition to depriving hundreds of players the opportunity to live out their dream by reaching “the Show,” the pronouncement also affected millions of fans in those towns and cities that were cut, denying them that quaint image of warm summer nights spent at small ballparks, enjoying the company of friends over a frosty beer and a hot dog.

That’s the picture that Will Bardenwerper paints in his new book, HOMESTAND: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America.

“What is baseball?” he asks in the introduction. “Is it really our ‘National Pastime,’ an enduring slice of Americana, as the powers-that-be marketed it for decades? Or is it --- as the decisions made by MLB’s owners and Commissioner Rob Manfred’s front office would suggest --- just a business, where efficiency and profits drive all the decisions?”

Bardenwerper spent a season following the Batavia Muckdogs, a former bush league club that was transformed into a sort of advanced travel team for college-aged aspirants, where players paid for the privilege of living the sporting life. But it’s not only about the game on the field or the players; it’s also about the fans who live in Batavia (as well as Elmira and the dozens of other small towns) and what has been taken away.

The author rails against the MLB system as he gets to know some of the local residents who have been supporting their minor league clubs for years and seem like stock actors from a Frank Capra movie: the elderly couple who have been together since high school; the pair of single middle-aged women who love to be in the stands; the husband-and-wife owners of the Batavia and Elmira teams, who barely make a profit but stick with it for the love of the game.

The earnestness can be a bit much as Bardenwerper waxes philosophical about what baseball means to small-town America --- with its boarded-up storefronts and run-down streets, evidence of a declining economy and population as younger people make their exodus to bigger cities.

Bardenwerper was obviously enamored of his embedded experience, getting to know these people whom he otherwise might have had nothing to do with for various reasons, including political views. But HOMESTAND is full of platitudes bordering on the cliché.

“Players come and players go,” Bardenwerper writes, quoting another author. “But it is the fans, passing lifetimes in the bleachers, who give minor league baseball its sense of permanence.”

He concludes: “[I]t was precisely these fans who had been reduced to impersonal numbers populating an Excel spreadsheet when MLB decided to wipe out minor league baseball in forty-two communities like Batavia, each populated by its own unique cast of characters to whom the game meant so much.”

Cue the Randy Newman soundtrack.

HOMESTAND by Will Bardenwerper is all about "Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America." Bardenwerper, a former soldier turned author and journalist, recounts (and deplores) the impact of the MLB's decision in 2020 to close 42 minor league teams by focusing on the Batavia Muckdogs team and their fans. The western New York town first hosted a baseball team in 1897 and traditions run deep. In addition to highlighting the financials and greed driving this MLB decision, Bardenwerper profiles many local characters. He will bring smiles to reader faces as they learn about Batavia's efforts to attract and support a collegiate team. Happily, this text evokes fond memories of small-town baseball and so much more; Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone) describes it as "a well-written paean to a sense of community that is now sadly in danger of being lost in America. Read HOMESTAND, and savor it while you still can." HOMESTAND received a starred review from Library Journal which called this title a "must-purchase." 4.5 stars overall

Thanks to Doubleday Books & NetGalley for this free ARC in return for my honest review.

Absolutely fantastic book!! Author Will Bardenwerper takes us on a journey to the Rust Belt, specifically Batavia, NY and gives us a book that is part baseball, part sociology, part localist and part nostalgia. He is there to document how one small city in upstate New York is dealing with the loss of their Minor League team, the Batavia Muckdogs, when Major League Baseball contracted the minor leagues from 162 teams to 120 and left small towns without a huge part of their culture. The Muckdogs are now part of a college summer league with the players actually paying to be on the team! We meet the owner, manager, coach, staff, fans and host of others as we see how the Muckdogs are truly a part of their community even though they only play for about 6 weeks in the summer. Baseball leaving Batavia and these other small cities, mirrors how businesses and industry have also left the area which left from thriving to almost dying. He also points out how MLB's loss of popularity is closely related to NASCAR's loss of popularity when they left their roots behind and lost so many loyal fans. The folks in Batavia love the Muckdogs and almost nobody follows MLB any longer for a multitude of reasons. A great read, filled with people you quickly grow attached to, and one that you will not put down until the last outs are recorded in the Muckdogs 2023 season!!

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

"My contempt for MLB knows no bounds."
100% agree! Lifelong baseball fan, yet I find myself getting away from the game more and more every season. (I have a room in my house I call the dugout, for goodness sake.) It kills me that I'm no longer interested. I don't watch TV and I rarely listen to it on the radio. Our AAA team moved out of state, the AA team is now part of Diamond, the MLB contracts are so ridiculous I can't even fathom that much money, and for what? Lackluster, boring games that are still too long even with pitch clocks, etc. The owners clearly have no regard for true fans. The corporate boxes/suites are a slap in the face to fans who can't afford a ticket, not to mention parking and concession prices. This book is a masterpiece of everything that's wrong with MLB. I particularly enjoyed the thoughts of Ron Shelton, the screenwriter of Bull Durham, one of my all time favorite movies. Nice to know there are plenty of others who feel as I do, sad as that is.

This book was a home run for me! The writing is relatable, bringing the sights, sounds, and quirks of a town that’s lost its minor league team and is now making do with a college summer team to life. Loved how he immersed himself in the full summer experience & gave us peeks into the regular attendees personality & life as they rally behind their new collegiate team. It’s a fastball of nostalgia, curveballs of humor, and a lineup of memorable characters. A must-read for baseball fans who know the game is about more than just what happens on the field—it’s about the heart of a community (review written with chatgpt assistance)

This book really didn't play fair with me.

It's something of a love letter to the Batavia Muckdogs of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. Author Will Bardenwerper spent several days in the summer of 2022 with the team in its quest to win a championship while keeping "organized" baseball alive in that city that's located about 45 miles from Buffalo down the Thruway.

The book, "Homestand," was written shortly after major league baseball's "contraction" of several minor league teams after the pandemic. Some New York State squads got together in 2021 to form a summer league from the remains of those franchises, as some of them like Batavia didn't survive the cut.

In an interesting coincidence, I actually attended the final two games of that season in Batavia in 2022. I even checked my baseball scorebook. It was odd that I actually recognized a few names in the scorebook after reading the book, as opposed to when I saw them in person at the time. I've tried to go to Batavia every so often over the years; I even announced a game on the radio in the 1980s there.

Speaking of coincidences, the owner of the Muckdogs also owns the Elmira Pioneers of the PGCBL. Bardenwerper makes a couple of trips there for games. I spent ages 9 to 14 in Dunn Field in Elmira, learning about baseball from my father's company's season tickets along the first-base line. I can still picture the place; I took a walk on the field and in the stands before a PGCBL game when in town in 2023.

Therefore, there was absolutely no chance I wouldn't like this book. Heck, I lived a little of it. And I did enjoy it - even if I knew how the story of the season was going to turn out (no spoilers here).

Bardenwerper is an interesting personality. He went to Princeton and had a finance job in New York when 9/11 hit. That inspired him to enlist in the Army, and he saw duty in Iraq. After his time was up, Will eventually landed a Masters' degree in international studies and worked at the Pentagon. He has one other book to his credit - the story of Saddam Hussein and his American captivity during the end of the Iraqi's leader's life.

Still, baseball stays with him. He played in college, and has been a New York Mets' fan for much of his life. But the minor league contraction hit him hard, as MLB ended a tradition of small-town professional baseball that went back decades to save a relatively pittance. So it was off to Batavia for some R&R, even if the players were simply college kids playing summer ball who had little chance to advance their careers past this stop.

Bardenwerper, then, is of two minds during the course of his summer. He wants to be furious about the way cities like Batavia have been treated, but he likes the way the citizens of the small town have banded together to keep some of the magic around. The author makes friends with the front office members and the manager, of course. But he also manages to fit in with some of the other fans who are regulars. Some walk a few blocks from their home to Dwyer Stadium, while others drive in from Buffalo. It does feel like some of small-town America is still alive and well in Batavia.

In addition, Bardenwerper stayed in hotels in the Batavia area during his season with the Muckdogs, That gave him time to explore the town a bit. He had meals there, and frequently ran into - or set up appointments - with others. It allows him to inject some local flavor into the story.

This all adds up into an odd sort of contradiction at the center of the book. He likes what he sees in Batavia, but is still angry about what was lost. So the tone essentially goes back and forth. It's also a little odd that the book was written about the 2022 season, and is only coming out now. I know first-hand that such delays happen, but an update on the situation and the players might have been worth knowing.

It's also worth mentioning from my standpoint that Buffalo doesn't come off particularly well here. Bardenwerper seems obsessed about the weather, making several knocks about the winter snows in the region. For someone who lives in Pittsburgh and was here in summer - and in terms of weather, Western New York has better summers than almost anywhere else - this comes off as a little petty.

That said, there's a lot to like in the book. Not much has been said or written about the towns that got left behind when the MBA types in MLB decided to break with the past. There are plenty of moments in "Homestand" that will remind you what we've lost.