Amazing what you'll find...

I was doing some research on the Appleton Papermakers and Goodland Field for some PLAYBALL! articles and found these nuggets on the web.

Tribute to Goodland Field is a website that doesn't have much to it. But, it does have this about the final out of the final game at the home of the Foxes.

When the Appleton Foxes’ Wilson Delgado lined out to South Bend third baseman Greg Norton at 9:51 p.m. on Monday, August 29, 1994, minor league baseball officially completed its 54-year run at storied but crumbling Goodland Field in Appleton. The Foxes were defeated by the South Bend Silver Hawks 8-1 in front of a season-high crowd of 3,492.

I believe this is the same Greg Norton who is in Spring Training with the Mariners this season.

Then, there were this story about some former Papermakers from an April 10, 2007 New Jersey newspaper article.

It has been 57 summers since 19-year-old Dewey Gray, from Pitman, New Jersey, and 21-year-old Paul Fritz, from East Peoria, Ill., were a starting battery for the Appleton Papermakers in the Class D Wisconsin State League.

For both St. Louis Browns farmhands, the 1950 season was their first and last in organized baseball.

Gray, a fireballing right-handed pitcher who struggled with his control, pitched in rotation the entire 1950 season but turned down an invitation to spring training the following year and joined the Navy. Fritz, a catcher, unceremoniously was given his unconditional release by the Browns after two months in Appleton and he, too, never played organized ball again. He still keeps his framed termination document, like it was the deed to his house.

There are pictures of the two in Papermaker uniforms from the 1950 team photo. There is also a mention of Fritz being an author who uses the pen name Max Blue.

Max has a website. One of his books is called God is Alive and Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers. The book is divided into five sections. Here are the final three:

Three - A Time to Coach

Aces and Eights

Four - Life of a Fan - How to Root for a Losing Baseball Team

A Short History of the April 1997 Philadelphia Phillies

Five - What Grampa's Are For
God Is Alive And Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers