woodbuck27
07-25-2006, 01:32 PM
Cliff Cristl: Packer blog
MONDAY, July 24, 2006, 4:22 p.m.
Back from vacation
Just got back from vacation and now it's back to work. My wife and I spent most of the last three weeks on the road. I started out with my annual Fourth of July weekend bicycle ride from Green Bay to Fish Creek. It's about a 65- to 70-mile ride to one of Wisconsin's favorite tourist spots. Next we spent a day at Summerfest and then some time in the Twin Cities with family.
Thereafter, we hit the rode on our Harley, heading south on the Great River Road. In all, we put on more than 3,000 miles. We spent time in Galena and Quincy, Ill.; Hannibal and St. Charles, Mo.; Paducah, Ky.; and Evansville, Ind., among other stops. As usual, we stuck to the same old rules of the road: 1) No franchise restaurants. 2) Avoid interstates as much as possible. 3) Make every effort to stay in downtowns, not on the outskirts.
What does all that have to do with football?
Our interest is history and I'm always in search of sports history.
In Quincy, I visited with Herm Schneidman, who is believed to be the oldest living Packer. Schneidman is 93 years old and still able to tell vivid stories. He was a blocking back from 1935 through 1939. It was an unglamorous position in the old Notre Dame box, but Schneidman played on two NFL championship teams in 1936 and '39. We talked about Curly Lambeau, Johnny Blood and a host of other subjects.
On the way to Quincy, we stopped and looked at three of the oldest minor league baseball parks in the Midwest, if not the country: John O'Donnell Stadium in Davenport, Ia.; Alliant Energy Field (formerly Riverview Stadium) in Clinton, Ia; and Community Field in Burlington, Ia. All three parks have undergone recent renovations, but they still retain much of their charm, especially the one in Clinton. O'Donnell Stadium was built in 1931; Riverview in 1937; and Community Field in 1947. My fascination with those cities and their ballparks began in the late 1950s, when I was growing up in Green Bay and the city had a franchise in the old Class B Three-I League. Burlington and Davenport also were in the league. Clinton was in the Midwest League at the time and still is.
Later, we stopped at Bosse Field in Evansville. Bosse is the third oldest baseball park in America. It opened in 1915, three years after Fenway Park and one year after Wrigley Field. If you're a baseball fan and ever in the vicinity of Evansville, I'd recommend going out of the way to see Bosse Field. The place radiates character and has aged well. Many of the scenes from a "A League of Their Own" were filmed there. You might even be able to catch a ballgame there. The Evansville Otters are members of the Frontier League, an independent pro baseball league. I remembered Evansville from when it was a farm club of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950s.
We also went out of our way to stop in Taylorville, Ill. Why Taylorville?
Here's the lead to a story ('The Taylorville Scandal') that appears on the web site of the Professional Football Researchers Association:
"Strange as it may seem, a semi-pro football game played in central Illinois once knocked Green Bay out of the National Football League. Although the Packers proudly proclaim their membership in the league as continuous since 1921, there was a five month period in 1922 when the Wisconsinites were persona non grata around the N.F.L."
Unfortunately, the park where the game was played no longer exists and apparently not many people in what is now a town of about 11,000 seemed to know anything about the scandal. The local library couldn't help me at all. However, I was able to buy a booklet about it at the Christian County Historical Society.
Taylorville also had another Wisconsin connection. In 1944, it won the state high school basketball championship in Illinois with a 45-0 record. The coach of the team was Dolph Stanley, who later turned Beloit College in southern Wisconsin into a college basketball power. Under Stanley, little Beloit even played in the NIT in 1951 as part of a field that included the likes to North Carolina State, Cincinnati and Arizona. Two of Stanley's players on the '44 Taylorville team and also at Beloit were Johnny Orr, who later gained fame as a college basketball coach, and Ron Bontemps, a key player on the United States' 1952 Olympic gold medal basketball team.
MONDAY, July 24, 2006, 4:22 p.m.
Back from vacation
Just got back from vacation and now it's back to work. My wife and I spent most of the last three weeks on the road. I started out with my annual Fourth of July weekend bicycle ride from Green Bay to Fish Creek. It's about a 65- to 70-mile ride to one of Wisconsin's favorite tourist spots. Next we spent a day at Summerfest and then some time in the Twin Cities with family.
Thereafter, we hit the rode on our Harley, heading south on the Great River Road. In all, we put on more than 3,000 miles. We spent time in Galena and Quincy, Ill.; Hannibal and St. Charles, Mo.; Paducah, Ky.; and Evansville, Ind., among other stops. As usual, we stuck to the same old rules of the road: 1) No franchise restaurants. 2) Avoid interstates as much as possible. 3) Make every effort to stay in downtowns, not on the outskirts.
What does all that have to do with football?
Our interest is history and I'm always in search of sports history.
In Quincy, I visited with Herm Schneidman, who is believed to be the oldest living Packer. Schneidman is 93 years old and still able to tell vivid stories. He was a blocking back from 1935 through 1939. It was an unglamorous position in the old Notre Dame box, but Schneidman played on two NFL championship teams in 1936 and '39. We talked about Curly Lambeau, Johnny Blood and a host of other subjects.
On the way to Quincy, we stopped and looked at three of the oldest minor league baseball parks in the Midwest, if not the country: John O'Donnell Stadium in Davenport, Ia.; Alliant Energy Field (formerly Riverview Stadium) in Clinton, Ia; and Community Field in Burlington, Ia. All three parks have undergone recent renovations, but they still retain much of their charm, especially the one in Clinton. O'Donnell Stadium was built in 1931; Riverview in 1937; and Community Field in 1947. My fascination with those cities and their ballparks began in the late 1950s, when I was growing up in Green Bay and the city had a franchise in the old Class B Three-I League. Burlington and Davenport also were in the league. Clinton was in the Midwest League at the time and still is.
Later, we stopped at Bosse Field in Evansville. Bosse is the third oldest baseball park in America. It opened in 1915, three years after Fenway Park and one year after Wrigley Field. If you're a baseball fan and ever in the vicinity of Evansville, I'd recommend going out of the way to see Bosse Field. The place radiates character and has aged well. Many of the scenes from a "A League of Their Own" were filmed there. You might even be able to catch a ballgame there. The Evansville Otters are members of the Frontier League, an independent pro baseball league. I remembered Evansville from when it was a farm club of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950s.
We also went out of our way to stop in Taylorville, Ill. Why Taylorville?
Here's the lead to a story ('The Taylorville Scandal') that appears on the web site of the Professional Football Researchers Association:
"Strange as it may seem, a semi-pro football game played in central Illinois once knocked Green Bay out of the National Football League. Although the Packers proudly proclaim their membership in the league as continuous since 1921, there was a five month period in 1922 when the Wisconsinites were persona non grata around the N.F.L."
Unfortunately, the park where the game was played no longer exists and apparently not many people in what is now a town of about 11,000 seemed to know anything about the scandal. The local library couldn't help me at all. However, I was able to buy a booklet about it at the Christian County Historical Society.
Taylorville also had another Wisconsin connection. In 1944, it won the state high school basketball championship in Illinois with a 45-0 record. The coach of the team was Dolph Stanley, who later turned Beloit College in southern Wisconsin into a college basketball power. Under Stanley, little Beloit even played in the NIT in 1951 as part of a field that included the likes to North Carolina State, Cincinnati and Arizona. Two of Stanley's players on the '44 Taylorville team and also at Beloit were Johnny Orr, who later gained fame as a college basketball coach, and Ron Bontemps, a key player on the United States' 1952 Olympic gold medal basketball team.