George Will, who knows a bit about baseball, wrote this interesting column yesterday in the Washington Post in which he explores the South Atlantic Minor League Baseball League, otherwise know as “the Sally.” The Sally is the hinterland of professional baseball, a low-A league in which the best players on their respective high school teams are evaluated to determine whether they have what it takes to move on to the next level of baseball’s brutally efficient meritocracy. As Mr. Will notes:

The RiverDogs play 140 games in 151 days, traveling by bus, living at least two to a room in motels, some earning as little as $1,050 a month — and only during the season — with a $20 per diem for food. “Sometimes,” says a player touchingly grateful for life’s little blessings, “the motel is near an Outback.” A young man from west Texas says, “I had a brother working in the oil fields. So if I wake up tired one day, I think, ‘I could be doing that.’ ” Most of today’s Sally Leaguers will be doing something like that sooner than they can bring themselves to imagine. But for now they are delighting some of the 40 million fans who will see minor league baseball this summer.

About 40 percent of the players on the 40-man rosters of the 30 major league clubs each spring are Sally League alumni, including, last April, Derek Jeter, Curt Schilling, Ivan Rodriguez, Luis Gonzalez, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones and John Smoltz. But nowhere near 40 percent of Sally League players get to the majors. Most were the best on their high school teams and are slow — mercifully so — to understand the severity of professional baseball’s meritocracy.

If you are interested in baseball, read the entire article. By the way, the Stros’ farm team in the Sally is the Lexington Legends ball club. Hat tip to Phil Miller over at the Sports Economist for the link to Mr. Will’s column.