This article is part of Minor League Baseball's "Celebrating Our Heroes" content series, presented by T-Mobile.
The Montgomery Biscuits have a lot in common with their neighbors at Maxwell Air Force Base.
As with most Minor League clubs, players pass through Montgomery pretty quickly, often graduating from the Double-A Rays affiliate to Triple-A Durham in a matter of weeks or months. Enlisted personnel at Maxwell AFB, which sits just short of three miles from the front gates at Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium, often have a similar experience.
Maxwell AFB is the headquarters for Air University, the air education and leadership development program for the U.S. Air Force. Just like a top prospect moving through a farm system, airmen often come to Maxwell AFB to get better at what they do before graduating to a different program.
Since 2018, the Biscuits have done well to keep these similarities in mind as they’ve celebrated military heroes.
Each year, the Biscuits do two different military appreciation nights. The first takes place in May, as the class at Maxwell AFB is set to graduate. The next is in September as the new class arrives.
The club also celebrates the military during each Wednesday home game and has catered their military ticket plans to better fit the schedule of the average Maxwell AFB airman, offering 10 undated tickets to servicemembers.
“It’s very important for us to be able to engage in that community,” said Biscuits’ general manager Mike Murphy. “It’s such a vital part of Montgomery.”
This season, the club sold nearly 500 of these ticket packages, which included gift cards to local restaurants and tickets to different college football games, including the Salute to Service Bowl, which takes place in Montgomery in December. The club also created a challenge coin pin to go along with the military flex plan.
“Challenge coins are almost like a way of welcoming someone to a community,” Murphy said. “Being able to give one to them so that they can … carry on the Biscuits' logo and what it means to those folks is awesome.”
The Biscuits’ second military appreciation celebration on Sept. 13 was well attended by servicemembers from Maxwell AFB. Players wore specialty jerseys with an American flag design. A local VFW chapter set up an information booth on the ballpark concourse.
There were ceremonial first pitches thrown by a member of each branch of the military as well as a representative from the Royal Canadian Air Force, Col. Angie Thomas, a student at the Air War College’s international school.
There was also a special presentation by the Wright Flyers, a local volunteer group which organizes events and fundraisers for the local military community. During an on-field ceremony, the group presented a check for $2,000 to the Maxwell-Gunter First Sergeant Council, an emergency fund for young airmen.
In May, Murphy and members of the Montgomery front office brought players on a tour of Maxwell AFB. The players also participated in team-building and problem-solving activities organized by the Squadron Officer School.
“It was kind of a dual way for us to be able to explain what Minor League Baseball is to those folks that are going through that program and also for our players to get an understanding of how important Maxwell AFB is to Montgomery,” Murphy said.
The players were put through “Project X” -- an obstacle course designed to test group problem-solving skills.
“Everybody struggled on their first one,” Murphy said. “It was just taking time to realize they had to work together to complete the mission.”
Murphy has developed an affinity for the people at the Squadron Officer School, which he described as a “pretty rowdy bunch” when they come to the ballpark. The group often brings some sort of object, like a broken bat signed by groundskeeper or a small fantasy football trophy that was signed by a Biscuits’ player, that serves as the group’s mascot or totem for the night out.
“It’s always fun to see the different items that they bring and to be able to kind of show the team atmosphere that they have over on base and to be able to share that with our team,” Murphy said.
The club plans to go back to Maxwell AFB with the players -- all of which could be fresh faces -- before Opening Day next year.