I would invite other attendees to share their
impressions of the ballpark and environs. Personally,
I thought it was a nice, pleasant, open, airy place.
Tim got us into the section behind home plate, close
to the action. In fact, we were close enough for one
of our members to earn a pronounced glower from the
home plate umpire after one inning in which Big Blue's
performance, frankly, left a little to be desired.

Prior to the game, 24 people in various kinds of
vintage baseball caps amused the stadium personnel by
showing up and enjoying the group picnic area.

Shane Etter treated us to a presentation on the life
and career of Art "Superman" Pennington; I'm sure
Shane would be willing to share his handout with folks
who are interested in receiving it. Mr. Pennington
was unable to attend in person due to some health
problems, unfortunately.

Our one bit of chapter business was one we've
discussed here also: We decided to find an open
Sunday in October for a joint meeting with the Halsey
Hall Chapter in Mason City. Four of us (John Skipper,
Charles Crawley, Stew Thornley and myself) will
coordinate on this and let everyone in both chapters
know what's up.

Charles treated us to an illusteated reading of Ogden
Nash's baseball poem . I don't remember the title,
but it's the one in which each letter stands for a
player: "Y is for Young / the Magnificent Cy / People
batted against him / But I never knew why."

The winner of Steve Bennett's brutal trivia quiz was
Steve Smith (18 out of 42); Steve Elsberry and Terry
Baxter tied for second with 16. Steve Smith wins the
travelling trophy (a copy of Willie Mays's "Play
Ball!") and the right to prepare the trivia quiz for
our next meeting.

The Kernels defeated Dayton in the 11th inning when
the Dayton reliever, new to the game, walked the bases
loaded. The next play was an attempted suicide
squeeze, in which the batter missed the bunt, hanging
the runner out to dry; however, the catcher dropped
the ball and the runner scored. Ah, A ball!

Many thanks to Tim Rask for organizing and running the
show! That's one of the fun things about this chapter
so far; each meeting, someone else has stepped up and
done it, and the results are way better than anything
we could do without that collaborative effort.


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- R. J. Lesch, Des Moines IA