LINCOLN, Nebraska – The organ at Haymarket Park honked out the polka classics “No Beer Today” and “In Heaven There Is No Beer” as Griffin Doersching batted for the East All-Stars in the top of the first.
Doersching represented the “beer batter” and if he struck out, fans could get a Coors Light or Blue Moon for just $3 for the rest of the inning.
Just because it was the 2026 American Association All-Star Game didn’t mean the zany marketing that makes minor league baseball so much fun would stop, and so the fans also hoped the next batter, Claudio Finol, might strikeout so they could get a coupon for a chicken sandwich. Between innings, “Der Viener Schlinger” shot Fairbury brand hot dogs out of a carbon dioxide powered cannon in the general direction of the fans.
It was a marked yet fun change from another All-Star Game played less than 24 hours before and half a country away, where tickets were sold out well in advance and had a retail market where prices started in the low four figures. Here, you could still have walked up at game time and gotten a ticket, as there was some competition for the local entertainment dollar, with Dude Perfect playing the Savannah Bananas, who apparently also play basketball, at nearby Pinnacle Bank Arena.
And no, Doersching didn’t strike out, and Finol didn’t didn’t strike out, either, at least not in the first. Doersching did go down swinging to end the top of the second, sending a solid fraction of the crowd to the concession stands to get their discounted libations. Like a Jelly of the Month Club, Doersching was the gift that kept on giving, and when he struck out again in the top of the fourth, fans again went up to the concourse for cheaper beer.
The American Association, if you’re unfamiliar, is a 12-team MLB Partner League with two divisions, one comprised of six teams, five of which are roughly in a line from Milwaukee through the Chicago suburbs to Gary, Indiana, plus the Cleburne (Texas) Railroaders, and the other six-team division has teams located roughly in a North-South line from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Kansas City.
Yes, being an MLB Partner League means that there’s no direct path for these players, but don’t confuse the American Association with some of the low-level independent leagues with teams made up of has-beens and never-weres.
Sure, it’s low-cost family entertainment – every minor league regardless of what sport they are playing aims to do that. Many of the American Association’s players previously played for MLB organizations and reached as high as Triple-A, and a few had some time in Major League Baseball before continuing their careers here. Twelve current players in MLB spent some time in the AA, including Max Scherzer, who made three starts for the Fort Worth Cats back in 2007, as well as Julian Garcia of the Cincinnati Reds, who played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 2024 and 2025, and the St. Louis Cardinals’ Bryan Torres, who spent 2022 and 2023 with the Milwaukee Milkmen.
But it’s also real, pure, competitive baseball, something that you don’t necessarily get in affiliated minor league baseball, where winning more often than not has taken a backseat to player development. Twice, teams representing the American Association have won the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Baseball Champions League Americas, with the Kane County Cougars taking this year’s edition in Mexico City from the Diablos Rojos del Mexico of the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, a team loaded with elite talent that is primed to win their third straight title in a league where the quality of play in on the rise each year.
Yes, there are older players in this league, but they’re guys who are easy to like and easy to root for. Take, for example, Jose Sermo of the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, who won this year’s Home Run Derby. He’s 35 and now nine years removed from his last season in affiliated baseball, which came with the High-A Salem Red Sox in 2017, but he’s continued on, playing independent ball from Long Island and Somerset (New Jersey) in the Atlantic League to Winnipeg to Cleburne and now Fargo-Moorhead in the American Association, appearing in 735 games in three different independent leagues, where he’s hit 163 home runs.
Those 163 independent league homers put him eight behind Jabari Henry of the American Association’s Sioux Falls Canaries as the two of them chase the all-time independent leagues home run mark held by John O’Brien, who socked 197 dingers with Rio Grande Valley and Alexandria of the now-defunct Texas-Louisiana League from 1994 to 2001.
Serno and Henry’s Sioux Falls teammate, Josh Rehwaldt, squared off in the final round of the Derby, with Sermo taking the crown on his final swing, cracking his sixth home run with his final swing to best Rehwaldt, who is a formidable power hitter in his own right.
Henry has been battling injury this year, but expects to return to the lineup this coming Friday, he told World Baseball Network.
“Me and Sermo have been close ever since 2017, 2018. So when he heard I was coming back, he goes, ‘I’m glad that you’re back and let’s make it a good race,’ Henry said. “So I’m excited to get back and hopefully we can have a good race and everybody can tune in to me and Sermo and try to see who can break it first.”
Jabari Henry of the Sioux Falls Canaries pitches to Jose Sermo in the 2026 American Association Home Run Derby. (Photo: Leif Skodnick/World Baseball Network)
Sermo, who has also played winter ball in his native Puerto Rico and Mexico, along with Rehwaldt, both asked Henry to pitch for them in the Derby.
“That shows what kind of a guy he is. I mean, he’s a guy that everybody loves because of the kindness of his heart,” Sermo said of Henry. “Since day one when I first joined the league, or whenever he first joined the league, the first time we met, we kind of clicked. And it almost feels like we played for a long time together and we never played together. So it’s something that is very special to me[.] These are meaningful people that it’s like we always had a chase, either we’re battling against who gets more walks or who gets more homers or who gets more whatever. We always battling against somebody. It’s a friendly, friendly fight.”
The East All-Stars got out to a 6-0 lead after three innings and easily held on to win 9-3, with Jaxx Groshans of the Chicago Dogs winning the All-Star Game MVP award after getting the East on the board with a three-run homer in the top of the first.
JAXX GROSHANS 3-RUN BLAST!
East 3 – West 0, Top 1 pic.twitter.com/cIZMoGg4JZ
— American Association (@AA_Baseball) July 16, 2026
Like Sermo and Henry, Groshans embodies the AA’s slogan, “We play for the love of the game.” Last October, he contemplated retiring, only to come back for another season, this time with the Chicago Dogs.
Most of the crowd, which included plenty of kids, stuck around to see the fireworks display that began after the final out, and so did Groshans, holding a box containing the MVP trophy with his equipment bag on the grass in front of the first base dugout.
The fireworks show may have been just as big of a draw as the game, and a night after MLB’s big show in Philadelphia, the American Association put on a show of their own, one that was pure Americana.
The great thing about minor league baseball its purity. You don’t always need videoboards, loud music, celebrities, and a red carpet for a great night at the ballpark. Sometimes all you need are a good game, hot dogs, and cold soda to have a great time.
If you’re looking to find the heart of the game, go visit the heartland and catch an American Association game.
Photo: The American Association All-Stars pose on the field following the 2026 American Association All-Star Game at Haymarket Park in Lincoln, Neb. on July 15, 2026. (Photo courtesy of the American Association)
