Ron Hunt wore a suit coat, of all things, to Veterans Memorial Stadium last night. No big deal that it was 90-degree weather and high humidity.
“My wife made me wear this damn thing,” he said.
That’s OK, Ron. Everyone was sweating last night anyway.
And this really was a suit-wearing occasion. Hunt and four other members of the 1960 Cedar Rapids Braves were in town for a 50-year reunion.
The quintet — which also included Bill Marnie, Barry Morgan, Paul Snyder and Larry Huebner — toured the ballpark early Wednesday afternoon, were honored before last night’s Cedar Rapids Kernels-Fort Wayne game and signed autographs.
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The reunion was Huebner’s idea. He located 23 of the 32 squad members (at least six have died) and suggested getting together.
He thought more than five would show up, but the five that were here enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
“I just made the suggestion,” said Huebner, who lives in Wisconsin. “I actually found 23 guys … It was a lot of fun to be able to talk to them. It was about an hour at a time. Just catching up with everybody.”
Professional baseball traces its origins in the Quad-Cities region to 1879, but Davenport found itself without a minor-league team when the Davenport Sox, a Three-I League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, moved to Lincoln, Neb., after the 1958 season.50 years of stats, facts and lists (More at the link)
Local businessman Hugo "Hooks" Kohn started a drive to return a team to Davenport's riverfront baseball stadium, and months later, the Quad-City Baseball Fans Association was formed.
The group raised funds, volunteered time and was successful in its attempt to "keep the lights burning" at what was then known as Municipal Stadium.
Kohn convinced a co-worker at a downtown office building, Doris Krucker, to assist him as the secretary of the organization. She recalled that 13 people braved a snowstorm on the night of the group's first meeting.
"People wanted baseball," Krucker said. "We collected $1 from everybody in attendance, and that $13 was our start."
Quad-Cities and Clinton are the only Midwest League franchises in existence in 1960 still playing the game today. Here are the final standings from that season:Quad-Cities Golden Anniversary All-Star Team
Team........W-L....Pct...GB
Waterloo....81-43...653...-
Dubuque.....66-56...541..14
Clinton.....61-56...521..16.5
Kokomo......63-59...517..17
Quad-Cities.55-65...458..24
Quincy......55-66...455..24.5
Keokuk......53-69...434..27
Decatur.....51-71...418..29
The only other time in MWL history there were 2 no-nos on the same day it was also the Chiefs and @CRKernels. 7/10/87. Finish it off CR!Of course, @CRKernels (and @jeje66) spat in the face of baseball tradition by continually mentioning the no-hitter. Maybe that's what I did wrong in Burlington earlier this month.
While the Chiefs didn't win it all in '85, a total of eight players on the roster eventually played in the big leagues. Two of those players made lasting legacies to say the least. Greg Maddux, he of the 355 career wins and future residence in the Hall of Fame, went 13-9 with a 3.19 ERA, pitching six complete games. He was joined by 20-year-old outfielder Rafael Palmeiro, who in just 73 games hit .297 with five home runs and 51 RBI.Plenty more there for a good read.
A year later the Chiefs made their last playoff run as a first-time Cubs affiliate, doing so with another pair of big league stalwarts. Three-time MLB All-Star Mark Grace hit .342 in 126 games. Three-time, and possibly soon to be four-time, World Series champ Joe Girardi was the back stop of the '86 club.
This was 1983, long before that bench-jockeying manager won a World Series and now has the Phillies back in the Series looking to repeat. Charlie Manuel's first managerial job was for a single-A club in a Wisconsin paper-mill town.It's a longer article -- four pages on the web -- and I recommend it for a few reasons. I can't copy and paste the picture of Witter Field's entrance that is in the slideshow and there are stories like this:
"I could fish at night when the game was over," Manuel said Friday when asked about his season managing the Wisconsin Rapids Twins. "I could walk right outside the locker room, there was a river about a block away. I'd walk down there and have . . . a Grain Belt beer, or Old Style. I used to say Old Style was my lucky beer."
If all that sounds like Charlie, understand this was a 39-year-old version. Known as a patient type now, he rarely held back in those days - once challenging his entire team to a fistfight.
Manuel stood up for his guys. One time, the entire team was fined for a bench-clearing brawl. Manuel thought the franchise, which was owned by the paper mill, should pay the fine, not the players.Read it all the way to the end for the story about one of Manuel's WR Twins players showing up in Miami for a Phillies game and trying to get Manuel's attention after a loss.
"Charlie had his way of thinking about things," Klump said. "He said, 'I would have fined you if you had stayed on the bench during the fight. You shouldn't get fined individually for going out.' "
So Manuel told his players to go home, they were going to forfeit that night.
Later, Klump said, he drove by the field and saw the lights on and the game going. He found out the front office had agreed to pay the fine, and Manuel had rounded up enough players to take the field.
"I just kept going," Klump said. "I wasn't pitching that night."
Before we end, there are two other points to mention. One of the first lighted baseball games was played in Fort Wayne on June 2, 1883, as Fort Wayne hosted the Quincy Professionals. And Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez hit his first professional home run in Fort Wayne as a member of the Appleton Foxes on April 24, 1994.Then, Quad Cities got the treatment.
Now, as we do every week, we tie the story into Kentucky and the Tampa Bay Rays. In 1999, current Rays' reliever Grant Balfour donned a River Bandits uniform as a member of the Twins organization. But perhaps the most famous alum from Davenport never actually played in the Midwest League. In 1951, Southgate, Kentucky, native Jim Bunning pitched for the Davenport Tigers. He was 8-10 with a 2.88 that season, sparking a career that eventually landed him in the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1996. Bunning finished his big league career with 224 wins and a 3.27 ERA with the Tigers, Dodgers, Phillies, and Pirates. Upon retiring after the '71 season, he was second all-time on the strikeout list, trailing only Walter Johnson. That's when Senator Bunning began his new career in politics. He is currently serving his second term as United States Senator for Kentucky.This week it was Kane County.
But, the greatest Cougar of them all, at least in South Central Kentucky, is none other than Joe Blanton. After being drafted in 2002, the Edmonson County native pitched in Kane County in '03, remarkably his only full season in the minor leagues. Blanton led the Cougars to the playoffs with a modest 8-7 record, but sterling 2.57 ERA. He averaged more than six innings per start while striking out 144 batters, a 9.7 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio. A year later, on September 21, 2004, Blanton made his major league debut with Oakland, never to return to the minors again.The Peoria Chiefs are up next Wednesday.
After several seasons of aborted efforts to expand, it finally appears that the Foxes will be playing in a 14-team league next year. Dr. Eric Margeneau, one of the owners of the South Bend franchise recently signed a lease with the city of South Bend to play in a new stadium. The stadium, which was built with public funds and completed this summer, hosted several exhibition games between the United States and Canadian Pan American baseball teams. The White Sox signed a player development contract with the South Bend owners.Some other articles that are ahead in this series...and for some reason they are both in the 1987 file:
The other new franchise will be located in Rockford, Ill. Originally, the team was slated for Evansville, Ind., and when that fell through, Kane County, Ill., just west of Chicago. The team will play its games on an expanded and improved field that was used for amateur baseball.
"The field and lights need upgrading, and the city just approved funds for that," said William McKee, owner of the new team. "We'll also build a unideck grandstand that will seat 2,500 with box seats in front and reserved seats in back. In addition, bleachers will be built down the third baseline. There are already football-type bleachers down the first baseline."
The only other problems facing McKee is to sign of [sic] player development contract with a major league team.
"We have talked to a number of teams, seriously to about five," said McKee. "We expect to have this wrapped up by Sept. 22."
The addition of the two teams could add substantially to league attendance. South Bend's new stadium should attract fans, if only to see the new structure, while Rockford is in close proximity to existing league teams in Beloit and Madison. That should create a situation where fans from all three cities can easily travel to away games.
The league has already voted to scrap the present three-division alignment in favor of two seven-team divisions.
Appleton, Wausau, Madison, Beloit, Kenosha, Rockford, and South Bend will play in one division, and Springfield, Peoria, Burlington, Quad Cities, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and Clinton will make up the other.
Plans call for a split-season with the winners of each half playing off for the divisional championship and those winners going on to meet for the league title.
No schedule has yet been worked out, but if the league retains its present 140-game format each team would play every other division member 14 times and meet the seven teams in the other division eight times.
Edwin Correa's fast ball was at its best Monday night, and that was bad news for the Waterloo Indians.In fair territory
It was his chance to escape.There is a picture of Cuellar, Ibanez, and Montane above that article.
While playing baseball for a Cuban national team in the Canary Islands last September, Jose Cuellar, now a 24-year old catcher with the Appleton Foxes, plotted his path to freedom. He convinced two strangers to hide him for a week until his team and any Cuban search parties had gone away.
If they would have caught me, I would have gone straight to jail," Cuellar said in Spanish recently while teammates Raul Ibanez and Ivan Montane translated. "I could forget about baseball. I would have had to rough it like everybody else."
Roeder recalls a newspaper story about Hoffman in which the reporter asked the pitcher what he did in the bullpen before entering games. Hoffman's reply? I dig up worms to eat. That right there told Roeder that Hoffman had the so-called "closer's mentality." Hoffman is also a great asset in the communit[y]. Roeder says he would sign up for everything. One time there was a dog show that needed judges. So the team chose a couple players and sent them off. Later Hoffman asks why he wasn't asked to judge the show. As Roeder put it the show "was nothing" but Hoffman said it's something he really would have liked to attend.
Waterloo, IA -- Catcher Carl[ton] Fisk of the Waterloo (Midwest) Hawks missed the team bus for a trip to Appleton, Wis., so he decided to hitch-hike. He beat the bus there by half an hour.You know, Carl Fisk just wouldn't look right on this plaque.
The brief news item on the sports page noted that former major league pitcher Randy Gumpert had died at age 90 in Wyomissing, Pa.The set-up:
What a flood of memories were released by that name.
In the summer of 1956, Randy Gumpert was the manager and third base coach for the Kearney Yankees in the rookie Nebraska State League. Ol’ Clark was an umpire in the league.
Gumpert, Ward and Ol’ Clark came together to make baseball history one hot, late-summer night in Holdredge, Neb., the White Sox affiliate in the league.The payoff:
On this night, Kearney was on a roll. Late in the game, Ward hit a grand slam home run. The inning continued until, with two out and a runner on first, the batter hit a long fly ball to deep center field.
The outfield fence in Holdredge was a 4-foot snow fence with more than a few missing slats. It was an umpire’s nightmare.
I moved to get a good look as the base umpire, and just at the last moment, the center fielder went between the ball and me. All I saw was the ball bounce. I had no idea whether the ball hit inside the fence and bounced or just cleared the fence, then bounced.
I ruled it a double and put runners on second and third. Out came Gumpert to let me know I was the only person in the park who didn’t know it was a home run. He had his say, then, shaking his head in disbelief, returned to the third base coach’s box.
The next batter walked, filling the bases, bringing up Jay Ward for the second time in the inning with the bases drunk.
Bingo!
His second grand slam of the inning! As I rounded the bases with Jay on his historic home run trot, I reached third base to see Randy glaring at me.
He shook Ward’s hand and said to me, "You still blew it."
Some 20 years later, I was covering the Midwest League and found Jay Ward managing the Twins’ club at Wisconsin Rapids.Awesome is a word that I use too much. But, this time it's appropriate: Awesome!
I introduced myself and said, "Aren’t you the guy who made history with the Kearney Yankees by hitting two grand slam dingers in the same inning?"
He replied: "That’s right. But it would never have happened if the umpire hadn’t blown a call to set up the second one. It was one of the worst calls I ever saw, but I appreciated it. How did you know about that game?"
I grinned and said, "I was that umpire."
Luckily.Cedar Rapids, Ia. -- Tom Simon, veteran showman of the Midwest League's umpire staff, pulled some new tricks here, August 22.
While 1,876 fans roared with laughter in the sixth inning, Simon sauntered to the box seats and downed a sandwich and a cup of coffee provided by a fan.
Then, he accepted a straight-backed chair and called balls and strikes from a sitting position for half an inning. Enjoying this luxury, Simon even ordered Quincy catcher John Hairston to dust off the plate for him.
After the game, the ump was surprised to discover his boss, league President Jim Doster, was in the crowd. Luckily, Doster has a sense of humor.
As Willis honed his pitching talents in college, the coaching staff indicated that he would get his own shot at pro ball. Alan’s dream came true when he was selected in the secondary phase of the June 1980 Amateur Baseball Draft by the Cleveland Indians.Nice story. But you know what I wish. No, not that. I wish that when these stories bring up that there was snow on the ground when a player first arrives in the Midwest League, they would later point out the fact that the snow melts at some point and the players do not play in the snow all year long.
“It was a real happy time as I remember,” said Alan when he got the call from the Indians. “It was just a special time and I will never forget that moment.”
Cleveland assigned Alan to their Rookie Class A affiliate, the Waterloo (Iowa) Indians of the Midwest League. He vividly recalled his first impressions of life in pro baseball.
“Snow on the ground. I’ll never forget it. Waterloo wasn’t the best place to play baseball,” said Alan with a chuckle.
Despite the less than ideal conditions, Willis went on to have a very good rookie campaign. Alan started 21 games for the Waterloo squad, posting an 8-5 record along with a 3.63 ERA and four complete games. The Waterloo franchise went on to win the Midwest League championship, with future major-leaguer Von Hayes capturing the MVP award.
“Von was a hell of a player. We became good friends and you could tell then he was on his way,” said Alan of Hayes
Paris, Ill. — Throughout the 1950s, the Paris Lakers professional minor league team and its Laker Stadium ballpark provided an idyllic setting for baseball fans in this Illinois town.
At its apex, the Lakers drew 60,350 fans through the turnstiles during the 1956 season, their second in the Midwest League. Originally a member of the Mississippi-Ohio Valley League (1950-54) the Lakers were later a Class D affiliate in the Chicago Cubs organization (1955-59).
Laker Stadium, located in Twin Lakes Park on the north side of Paris, was described during that time as a fenced square with unsheltered bleacher seating 2,500 people. But after the team folded prior to the 1960 season and through the inevitable passage of time, now all that’s left behind is the original playing field.
To be exact, a substandard playing field remains. But happily, that will not be the last chapter written in the Laker Stadium saga.
The town of Paris is mounting a fundraising campaign to resurrect Laker Stadium. Not necessarily to house a minor league team, but all options are on the table.
“If you build it they will come,” offered Herman Taylor, borrowing that famous quote from the baseball movie “Field of Dreams.” Taylor is a member of the newly-formed Laker Board, a seven-member group appointed by the city’s mayor and city council.
Good luck, Paris.
Fast forward to present day, the Laker Stadium playing surface is in a state of disrepair despite being the home field for Paris High School and various youth teams.
According to Taylor, the playing field — extending from home plate to right-center field has a drop-off of about 6 1/2 feet. He noted there are a lot of bad hops on the field too.
“Many people in the community remember fondly those days in the ‘50s … a lot of baseball fans,” Taylor described the reasoning behind the revitalization of Laker Stadium. “Several people living here now were bat boys then or worked at the stadium. There’s a lot of nostalgia for the ball park.
“We’re trying to do this over time,” Taylor said of the fundraising effort. “We’re not using tax dollars. First we want to get the field to a reasonable level of play. The fence is shot in the outfield … we have more weeds than grass.”
