This is my favorite time of the baseball season.

Not because the snow is finally gone and every team still has a chance at the World Series -- except the Cubs, of course.

No, this is my favorite time of the baseball season because the minor league teams have begun to release a schedule of their special promotional nights for the coming year.

Minor league baseball promotions are often so entertaining they deserve their own awards show honoring the best and worst of any given season. Few of them have anything to do with baseball.

Here in Madison, the Mallards -- whose Northwoods League season opens May 29 -- have already announced a number of special promotions. There will be bobblehead nights, turn-back-the-clock nights, a Ghostbusters night and appearances by former sitcom stars Jerry Mathers ( "Leave it to Beaver") and Anson Williams ( "Happy Days"), with many more still to be announced. (Those looking for more on the coming Mallards season are invited to attend the team's First Pitch Event at 6 p.m. April 24 at the Downtown location of the Great Dane Brew Pub.)

Vern Stenman, general manager of the Mallards, is a devotee of the late Bill Veeck, the fun-loving, peg-legged maverick who owned both minor and major league teams during his colorful career. Veeck is probably most famous for sending a midget, Eddie Gaedel, to bat in a major league game in 1951.

"I don't think the Mallards exist without Bill Veeck," Stenman once said.

But this wouldn't be America if some minor league clubs didn't follow Veeck's lead way over the top.

Just last month, the Macon Music of the South Coast League announced that their June 13 game against the Aiken Foxhounds would be "Eliot Spitzer Night" at the ballpark.

Spitzer, of course, is the former New York governor who resigned after news accounts detailed his alleged assignation with a prostitute at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The prostitution ring listed Spitzer as "client number nine."

The Macon Music's "Eliot Spitzer Night" included an offer to Spitzer to throw out the first pitch; a free night at the Mayflower for one lucky fan; and a prize pack for the ninth fan through the gate.

You may notice that I referred to the Spitzer night in the past tense. That 's because once it was publicized in the Macon Telegraph, enough outraged readers contacted the team to give management second thoughts. They wound up conducting an online poll of fans to see whether they should keep the promotion. In the end, Spitzer night lost at the polls and was retired.

A few years ago, Sports Illustrated's Web site put together a list of the top 10 zany promotions in recent minor league baseball history.

No. 1 was "Nobody Night," a July 8, 2002, promotion designed to set the record for the lowest attendance in the history of professional baseball. Fans were locked out of the Charleston Riverdogs-Columbus RedStixx game and the official attendance -- 0 -- set the record.

My favorite on the SI list may be "Auctioned At-Bat Night," when the St. Paul Saints sold an at-bat in their line-up on eBay in May 2004. The winning bid was $5,601. Unlike Eddie Gaedel (who walked), the winning bidder did not reach base, popping out to the infield instead.

There may have been genetics involved in the auctioned at-bat. The St. Paul Saints are owned by Mike Veeck, son of Bill Veeck. Mike is plenty colorful in his own right. I remember Madison attorney Pat Sweeney telling a story about having dinner with Mike Veeck and the comedian Bill Murray some years ago in North Carolina.

Sweeney owned a previous Madison minor league team, the Madison Black Wolf. He dined with Veeck and Murray, who had money in the Saints, one night during league meetings. It was an expensive and staid restaurant in Chapel Hill -- at least it was staid until Murray starting tapping on a water glass and singing, "Now don't you know, that's the sound of the men, working on the chain gaaaang."

Before long, everyone in the restaurant was singing along. The upshot of the dinner was that Murray showed up at a Black Wolf game at Warner Park the following summer.

Meanwhile, Vern Stenman and the Mallards continue to plot promotions for this summer. Probably none will be so weird as "Ted Williams Popsicle Night," which the Bisbee-Douglas Copper Kings hosted after Williams' body was cryogenically frozen. The first 500 fans got free Popsicles. Or "Silent Night," in which fans of the Charleston Riverdogs put duct tape on their mouths and held up signs that said "YEH" and "BOO" and "HEY, BEER MAN."

Let me be the first to suggest a "Bill Veeck Night" at the Duck Pond. We can work out the details, but there would be a lot of beer, a lot of laughter, and, yes, even some baseball.