2008 MLB Futures Game at Yankee Stadium

Chip HAUNSS
for SZ

The 2008 Futures Game, played in the final season of “House that Ruth Built,” legendary Yankee Stadium, was the 10th showcase of MiLB’s best players during MLB All-Star weekend.

The Big Apple's palace of baseball was the star to the minor league invitees from the World Team and Team USA.

“Being the first time in the Yankee stadium and the first time in New York, you are awe struck when you are running in from the bullpen,” said A’s pitching prospect Brett Anderson. “You just have to keep your adrenaline down and just go out there and play.”

“It was great to be back [in Yankee Stadium],” said World Team skipper and former pin-striper Tino Martinez. “Any time you get a chance to participate in any activity at Yankee stadium I take advantage of it. It was quite an honor to be named manager of one of the Futures Game teams.”

While the Stadium was the buzz heading into the game, no player was swarmed by the media more than...

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Has the MLB Futures Game Eclipsed Minor League All-Star Games for Star Power?

Jeff ROBINSON &
Brian ROSS
for SZ

To the mind of Pacific Coast League (PCL) President Branch Rickey III, the Futures Game will never supplant minor league all-star games.

“I think it’s apples and oranges,” Rickey said. “You don’t diminish the apple because of the orange and you don’t diminish the orange because of the apple.”

Yet the MLB Futures Game possesses certain strengths:

• It cuts across leagues and classes of Minor League Baseball to showcase players who could be seen at a half dozen separate all-star events in one place.
  
  
• It allows MLB to point the spotlight at the hotter sections of the farm system. This year, with prospects like Mat Gamel. Cameron Maybin and Clayton Kershaw, AA class baseball was the place to be.

For fans, though, the minor league all-star games have...

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2008 Triple-A All-Star Game

Jeff ROBINSON
for SZ

LOUISVILLE, Ky.— A sellout crowd of 13,131 at Louisville Slugger Field was treated to a flavorful game, one in which 14 pitchers surrendered just eight hits and two runs over the first eight innings, with the International League scoring twice in the seventh to break a scoreless tie.

Then came the ninth and an unlikely deluge of hits. IL manager Dave Miley sent Blaine Neal to protect the lead . He had been named to the U.S. Olympic team earlier in the day. Neal has had 23 saves in 25 opportunities with the Toledo Mud Hens.

The PCL scored six times off of Neal, getting consecutive RBI singles from the Tuscson Sidewinders’ Jamie D’Antona, Matt Brown of Salt Lake, Mark Saccomanno of the Round Rock Express and getting help via a crucial error by IL first baseman Barbaro Canizares. Brown went 2-for-3 with a double and was named the PLC’s most valuable player.

Down 6-2, the IL quickly brought the crowd to its feet when...

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