Luke Erickson: The season-ticket holder experience in the minors

For the past several years of writing online about the Nationals minor leaguers, I've had to make the disclosure that I'm a season-ticket holder to Washington's high Single-A affiliate in Potomac. Well, maybe not "had to," but I've felt the need to as a matter of integrity and my experience as a newspaperman (I'm old enough to have actually cut and paste with an X-acto knife and a wax machine).

It's also because the inference that I might be a "homer" because I root for many of these guys is both fair ... and occasionally accurate. But what does it really mean to be a season-ticket holder in the minors?

It means I enjoy going to baseball games enough to be willing to pony up hundreds of dollars to lock in my favorite seat(s) and know that I won't be able to attend each and every game (though I generally make about 2/3 of them).

It means getting to know the folks in your section very well. The depiction of the "summer family" in the movie "Fever Pitch" is fairly accurate. We know and look out for each other, and sometimes we play usher to the folks from the cheap seats who try to "move up."

As mentioned in the very first column, by doing this - going to game after game, series after series - you get to learn the true strengths and weaknesses of the players and can really enjoy it when "the light comes on."

My favorite example is Tyler Moore in 2010. While most folks remember him from his time on the big club in 2012-15, I remember seeing a 23-year-old finally figure out that if he just took a few more pitches, he'd start getting some hitter's counts and do some damage.

Night after night, from April to mid-June, we'd watch him fall into an 0-2 count or swing at a pitcher's pitch and barely hit his weight (.199), though he'd go deep a few times (nine homers).

Then suddenly, Moore stopped falling behind and started getting 1-1 and 2-0 counts, and started to hit - .310 with 22 home runs and 71 RBIs over his last 64 regular season games. Not coincidentally, the P-Nats won the league championship, too.

That's the best part of the experience. Not the food, not the stadium (*ahem*) and not the promotions. It's the players, the people and the games.

Luke Erickson blogs about the Nationals' minor league affiliates for NationalsProspects.com. Follow him on Twitter: @nats_prospects. His thoughts on the Nationals' farm system will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.