SL's Mincher wins 2008 Warren Giles Award

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Southern League President Don Mincher has been named by Minor League Baseball as this year's recipient of the Warren Giles Award. Mincher, along with other award winners, will be honored during the December 8-11 Baseball Winter Meetings™ to be held at the Las Vegas Hilton.

The Giles Award annually honors outstanding service as a league president. Thanks to Mincher's leadership over the last nine years, the Southern League has experienced tremendous stability and continuity in its operations. The league has drawn over 2.4 million fans nine times, seven of them while he's been in office.

"I am very excited to be the Warren Giles Award recipient for 2008," said Mincher. "It is a great honor, and I hope to emulate the ideals and service that Warren Giles exhibited during his 18 years as a league president."

Mincher has been involved with the Southern League since 1984 when he became general manager of the Huntsville Stars. Ten years later, he and a group of other Huntsville residents purchased the club. Don was vice president of the Southern League when he assumed the president's role in February 2000 on a temporary basis when the position was vacated. Several months later, "interim" was removed from his title.

Don has witnessed many of his 10 clubs' ballparks undergo facility improvements in the last several years, including new stadiums in Jacksonville, Montgomery and Pearl, Miss., home of the Mississippi Braves. Chattanooga and Tennessee opened new ballparks in 2000.

In addition to his duties as league president, Mincher serves as chairman of the Minor League Baseball Council of League Presidents Game Operations Committee. Don spent 13 years in the Major Leagues and was a member of the 1972 Oakland Athletics World Series Championship team.