"This is a simple game," says the manager in the movie Bull Durham, distilling baseball to its essence. "You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball."

It's a perspective that's easy to lose in a world where major-league ballparks have swimming pools and steam-locomotive replicas, hotels, and art galleries, where stadiums are named for banks and beers, tech companies, and Ted Turner. Pony up $50 million, and they might even name one after you. Even the minor leagues have gotten more gussied up with their scaled-down yet state-of-the-art throwback parks.

And then there's the simplicity of a Visalia Oaks game--just baseball in a ballpark with no official name. The Visalia ballfield--usually referred to as Recreation Park, after the city park in which it sits--is the second smallest in all of baseball, a 1,612-seat bandbox, where front row is less than 30 feet from home plate.

They've upgraded by adding a covered picnic deck and seats with cupholders. But the stands still sit on a Gunite-covered slope, made from dirt excavated when State 198 was cut through town in the 1960s. Glamorous it's not.

"We've got the smallest press box in professional baseball," says official scorer Harry Kargenian. "It seats three comfortably. And I'm one of the three."

A valley tradition

The Oaks play in the California League, the venerable Single-A league and longtime Central Valley presence. The valley has produced a few of baseball's notable figures, including Hall of Fame pitcher and Fresno native Tom Seaver and Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox, who graduated from Selma High School. For that matter, Stockton has staked claim to none other than the Mighty Casey himself; the city is in a dispute with Holliston, Massachusetts, over which town is the real-life Mudville that inspired the famed Ernest L. Thayer poem, Casey at the Bat.

Visalia has had teams since 1946. Hours before the game, Oaks ballplayers run and stretch with their hitting coach. The smell of oak-fired tri-tip drifts into the hot, muggy air of a Central Valley summer evening. Some nights the concession stands barbecue up 60 to 70 pounds of meat--burgers, chicken, and linguica--making a plain old hot dog seem besides the point, tradition notwithstanding.