Mid-Iowa MSBL and Omaha MSBL Square-off at ‘Field of Dreams’ in Dyersville, Iowa
Submitted by Larry Kaiser, Omaha MSBL
The JW team from the Omaha MSBL recently took a trip to Dyersville, Iowa to the ‘Field of Dreams’ field to play the Des Moines Blues from the Mid-Iowa MSBL.
Jeff Shook, captain of the Blues, and Chris Speers from the Omaha MSBL deserve all the credit for putting this game together. Chris was playing for us in Omaha and said his former team, the Blues, was looking for an opponent as the previously scheduled Minnesota team had backed out.
The game was nine innings and was played on Friday, August 18th at 7:30 pm. This was just a one-off bucket list type of game for most of us. The Blues are an over-40 wood-bat team.
The JW squad was a combo team from our over 50 guys and our Wednesday 22-over league.
The ‘Wayne’ sign was for Wayne Wagoner, our team’s founder who just recently had to quit playing due to health problems, unrelated to baseball injuries. A true Ironman who played catcher into his 70s. Just recently the league awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Blues won the game easily 23-4, or something like that. We used wood bats for the game. Once the lights came on, it was challenging for pop-ups as the lights were pretty low. Also unique were the power lines coming into play and a couple of power poles, too. Two balls rolled into the corn for doubles, which was pretty cool!