A Fan's Guide to the Midwest League

Frequently Asked Questions

Some questions keep coming up. This page attempts to answer those.

What I'm trying to do

This site is mainly about Midwest League history. This was the original intention, and remains the main intention. My efforts to cover current MWL news were driven mainly by the difficulty of finding other coverage. That reason no longer applies.

In 1996, MWLguide was the only on-line source that attempted to cover the Midwest League in any detail. Few teams had a web presence, and only two or three newspapers were offering local coverage of their teams. This is no longer true. There is abundant information about every team on the web:

• Box scores are now posted daily on several websites.
• Nearly all of the teams have very good or excellent websites.
• All MWL teams have some media coverage on the web; some of that coverage is excellent.
• Baseball America now shares much of the magazine's minor league content with the web community, albeit not entirely for free.
• Each day's scores are usually available by bedtime.

Almost none of these services existed in 1996, when I began writing about the league; one of my intentions was to fill that gap. It's clear that I no longer need to fill that role.

In my estimation, it's a poor use of my time to duplicate information which is readily available at other locations on the World Wide Web, so I mostly don't duplicate other content. Generally speaking, it makes more sense to build a link than it does to duplicate someone else's research.

My thanks to everyone for their encouragement.

Finding career records for individual players

The best source I know for minor league player stats is Patric Doyle's Old Time Data; Pat can be reached at baseballdata@earthlink.net. OTD also sells a version of Pat's player database, which is available through the Baseball Almanac website.

Tryout camps, scouts, and similar issues

Midwest League teams get their players from major league teams and do not directly hold tryouts.

The best way to get into the minors is the be an excellent player on a high school or college team; all big league teams employ scouts whose responsibilities include finding promising amateur players. Big league teams host tryout camps, sometimes at minor league parks. There's a list of pages about Recruiting, Scouting, and Tryouts on Skilton's Baseball Links. The Frontier League, an independent league which operates in Midwestern cities, has some information about how they sign players on their site.

Getting a job with a Midwest League team

There's nothing I can do to help; I'm a fan, not a league or team official. Talk to the General Manager for your local team. Every team has a public phone and an email address; see the team's website. Good luck!

Caps, Clothing, and Other Sales

I don't offer those things. This website is a hobby, not a business.

Baseball cards and other collectibles

I'm not particularly interested in cards, and don't have any useful sources for information about collectibles. I do collect books, programs, and yearbooks pertaining to minor league baseball, and to MWL teams.

Identifying prospects

Please don't ask me if Player A is a prospect. I don't do prospects; I watch baseball games. If the players I've watched make the big leagues, I'm delighted, but that's not why I watch Midwest League baseball. I even wrote an essay about the prospect question.

Privacy Policy

MWLguide never asks for identification information. We occasionally receive e-mail via the website, which is read and which usually generates a response; it may be passed to someone with more expertise, but I'll ask your permission before I do so. No other use is ever made of that identification.