Growing up in Evansville, Indiana in the late 40s and early 50s we kids thought the world revolve around the Evansville Braves. They were a professional baseball team in the Three I League. They were the Class B farm club of the Boston Braves. But to us they were bigger than life. They played in a brick baseball park called Bosse Field. It is the ballfield used in the movie “A league of their own” which starred Tom Hanks and Gena Davis.

We didn’t have the money to actually go to the games, but we hung around the park during practices. During breaks the players would come over and talk to us. We were just thrilled. Outside the park on the right field side was a railroad siding. Usually there were a couple of boxcars parked there. We would climb up on them during games and had a great view of the game.

We got the see the starting careers of players like Warren Span, Bob Uecker, and Chuck Tanner. I was sitting on the boxcar when Del Crandall came up to bat for the first time as a professional ball player. He hit a home run. One of the guys sitting there said, “he won’t be here long”, and he wasn’t. In the middle of the season, he was moved up to class A in Hartford Connecticut. After a stellar career he finished as the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers.

I still remember those days.

2 thoughts on “Take me out to the ballgame

  1. Tom Humphris

    Bill, we had a Three I treat in Springfield, but I don’t remember
    The Major League Owner

  2. Your code of destiny

    I’m really impressed together with your writing talents as neatly as with the format to your weblog. Is this a paid subject matter or did you customize it yourself? Anyway stay up the nice quality writing, it is uncommon to see a nice weblog like this one today!

Leave A Comment

Recommended Posts

Midget surprise

Bill Mitchell

The year I was coaching midget hockey in the Rockford Hockey club I had a pretty good team. Midgets were fifteen and sixteen year olds. The nicest advantage of coaching midgets was many of them had drivers’ licenses and drove to practices. […]

Martha’s quests

Bill Mitchell

In 1999 a group of Beloiters plus Martha decided they should do something about honoring Roy Chapman Andrews. He was born in Beloit Wisconsin, graduated from Beloit college and started his career for a museum in New York. He had an interesting […]