When you think about the classic baseball towns, South Bend has that exact same DNA.

People from diverse backgrounds doing hard, dirty work, looking to unwind on a ball field at the end of the night.

That's what made South Bend such a great baseball town then, and that's never left the DNA of the city.

The Blue Sox and the the teams that were playing against them I think that they paved the way for all women in all sports.

I had no idea baseball played such a critical part in the community coming together.

And what it led to was absolutely extraordinary.

It's building South Bend in terms of our population and our community institution.

It's building South Bend in terms of our cultural life, that builds our community in different ways too.

South Bend: Built by Baseball is brought to you by our Grand Slam sponsors.

Carpenters Union Local 413, building South Bend for over 125 years.

Former State Senator Doug Hunt, recognizing the preservation and appreciation of South Bend's past, its present community, and our shared duty to its future.

Thank you.

Baseball has been this entryway into hearing and listening and inviting others to tell their stories as integral communities and people in this town's formation.

I mean, we're a city that was so embrasive to so many different types of people coming in, and providing them space to just be.

And what a great place to have that happen But on a baseball field.

So the Foundry Field project is very, very exciting, I think important project in South Bend that is building an accessible, state of the art, accessible baseball field.

The leaders of the project, Michael Hebbeler and Matthew Insley thought it was very important that was accessible, but to build a baseball field that built on the history of baseball in South Bend.

The tradition of baseball in South Bend, and particularly to recognize and to amplify the stories of these underrepresented baseball teams like the Foundry Giants, like Uncle Bill s, Latinx baseball and softball teams that played in the 50s, 60s, 70s to make sure these stories are well known.

Foundry Field, yes, is a baseball diamond, but I would say more importantly, it's a living museum that tells the stories of our community and celebrates the successes, names the challenges, and celebrates the resilience and the courage of the African-American community, the Latino community, And it's really fun to be a part of that.

I think it's really important for us to invest in our communities however we can, And so for me, my passion was baseball and urban spaces and beauty in the urban core.

And I saw a place that was underutilized.

And I just thought that it could be a community asset.

And so we decided to try to invest our time, our energy, our resources in that, to, to make that little tiny corner, just a little bit more beautiful.

The vision for the mural project really reflects the, the motivation for the field, which has so much to do with access and belonging.

And so the field providing an accessible space to play.

But then the murals that, exhibit teams that come from different races, different genders, different times, basically saying, welcome, we play the game, you can see yourself in us and you do belong here.

One of our hopes with Foundry Field is to make this a place that's accessible and open, and can hopefully host young people.

For me, and intergenerational relationships.

And I think there's great possibility in that at Foundry Field.

It's interesting to me because you're bringing not only families together, but you re bringing friends back together, right?

You re bringing friends and family back together to have, have a a time of enjoyment, man.

And and it's all centered around the game of baseball.

I think sport and baseball can be important cultural touchstones to help folks build relationships and build connections in their communities.

And this is a project that I think does that.

And it's stretched me and grown me to do that, and new ways that baseball gets to be at the center of it, where we learn about the history, where we're making new baseball stories in the present, and we're creating spaces for folks 20, 30, 50 years from now to have baseball stories that they're going to tell.

I mean, is this heaven?

In the 1860s, late part of the 1860s, South Bend really fell in love with croquet.

And by the 1870s, it was a baseball town.

There are lots of stories about how baseball came to South Bend.

The most common who was over at Notre Dame who kind of brought baseball into the city.

However it came into the city, South Bend fell in love right away.

South Bend was and it was a city full of immigrants.

We had newspapers written in several different languages.

And for a long time there, it was baseball that was kind of the common language that was spoken.

When you look at the, let's say 1910, the 1930 or 40 time period, the large factories here in the area, you had, you know, Singer, the Singer plant, out on Division or Western Avenue.

You had, you know, Bendix, Studebaker.

All of those companies had teams, both in-house teams, where they would play like a weekday league and then on weekends, most of the time there was there was like an industrial league.

And so the best of your in-house players would form that club, and you d play on the weekends.

It was really just, competitive level of ball.

And you would draw teams up, you know, opposition, let's say, coming in on Saturday and Sunday, who would be from let's say Fort Wayne, or Indianapolis, they would be sending their best out.

The semi-pro baseball circuit was really, really strong, through, for sure the 1930s.

The Studebaker factory was obviously the biggest factory in the city, and they were interested in competing on something like equal footing with the other teams because they had at least 2 or 3 teams going at any time.

They could have absolutely stacked all of their best players onto one team and won every single year.

But they didn't.

They had a Studebaker A team, a Studebaker B team, and then later on they had the Foundry team, and the Foundry team was all African Americans.

They were a separate team, and they were probably the best of the three teams at that time.

that are still told about them are pretty incredible.

So the Foundry Giants, as we've called them, the team went by a few names while they were active, was a predominantly Black team of Studebaker workers who worked in the foundry.

some of the hardest work that was happening in manufacturing.

A lot of the people who, that group of African-Americans who come to the North in the Great Migration.

There are players who come from Arkansas.

I think there are players from Texas.

Many of them settle in South Bend in the 19-teens around the World War One era.

My mom, my dad both have a history of growing up in the South where both of them had to, you know, along with their own siblings and family members they had to pick cotton every day.

If it weren't for my grandmother, if she wasn't intentionally, had not intentionally moved from Macon, Mississippi to South Bend, my dad would not have become who he was athletically.

Seabe Gavin Sr.

does have a very interesting story.

He is one of those athletes who played varsity sports at South Bend High School.

He was a South Bend Bear.

He played football and baseball, a very good football player, very good baseball player.

He hits many home runs as a South Bend Central High School baseball player.

He played for the Monarchs.

And later he played for the Foundry Giants.

And that's where I guess that's where he really made a name for himself, playing for the Monarchs and the Foundry Giants.

So while the South and the old Confederacy in the Jim Crow states, there are not laws like that in the North, in the Midwest, in Indiana, in South Bend.

But what happens outside of the South, outside of the Jim Crow states, is you have these informal understandings.

You don't have the force of law behind them, but you have white societies basically decided there are things African Americans should not be allowed to do.

In the sports world, in South Bend, that sort of sorts out into having African-American teams and white teams.

Seabe Gavin, who is probably one of the best baseball players in the state if not the best baseball player in the state, but because of the color of his skin, he never was honored.

And he was a World War Two veteran who got four Medals of Honor and came back to South Bend, couldn't get a job because of the color of his skin, but that never stopped who he was.

Because the center point of his life was always based on family.

Alonzo Poindexter is one of the, his family is one of the African-American families that comes to South Bend around the World War One era He also is the catcher for the Foundry Giants in 1927 and some other years.

At some point in the 1940s, I believe the early 1940s, he's hired by Saint Joe County as the first African-American deputy sheriff.

And he works He seems to have thought that was important to improve the relationship or to have a better relationship between the sheriff s department and the local African-American community.

I knew Mr.

Poindexter.

I knew all his kids.

I grew up with a couple of his kids, I probably would say my dad and him had similar characteristics.

because Mr.

Poindexter was a family man, very family oriented.

The thing that with my dad and also the Foundry Giants, they were probably the only minority team in the area.

And I always say this, I wonder what was it like for them to walk into a stadium or to a field, and they re the only black people there?

What kind of abuse did they go through?

What kind of hatred did they experience, or what kind of name-calling was it?

But that never stopped them from being as great as they were.

So that says a lot about who they were.

It says a lot about the example that they left for many people of color like me.

One of the things that just stood out to me is you know, I knew this, but just seeing all the ways in which the people that were part of this team literally built South Bend, built churches, built cultural institutions, built community life, but also built South Bend's economy, working in jobs that were often physically really laborious and sometimes dangerous and prone to injury.

I think that was something that was just really powerful to think about.

might have brought them to South Bend.

But it was opportunities in manufacturing and the communities and the families and the connections kind of Black life in South Bend.

Ernest Harris and Della Harris were, and through the Harris Cafe were an important part of the social life of the African-American community.

They, the Harris Cafe seems to have been a safe space for teenagers and young adults to just hang out to, to have hamburger and fries and to listen to the jukebox and to be themselves and not worry about going to the wrong place, not worry about being in trouble for being in the wrong place.

Not worry about someone not liking who they are because of the color of their skin.

It's a safe space for them.

Ernest Harris of the Foundry Giants at one point.

So he's involved with sports in African-American community, and then we don't really know why, but at some point, Ernest Harris starts Uncle Bill's softball team.

And he recruits women, African-American women from South Bend who want to play softball.

Uncle Bill Harris, African-American females to play ball.

And a lot of individuals in the community, Renelda Robinson would be kind of like the person that comes most to forefront, for that.

My mother, Renelda, was a long time resident, born and died 75 years later on North Francis Street, right off South Bend Avenue.

She was, in her young life.

She played with the Uncle Bill's colored girls softball team.

Her background was in playing baseball.

She played at Perley School.

And, she often remarked how she was, when they were picking up sides in the neighborhood, she was, generally picked first before any of the boys, She was really a tomboy.

And my grandmother said because she couldn't cook, she's a terrible cook.

And her, she had one sister who was a great cook.

And we d say, grandma, how come mama can't cook?

She said she's out in the street playing ball with the boys, that's how come she she can't cook today.

And she just she's very athletic.

I met Renelda back in the, would ve been the mid-1980s, and, was able to interview her, you know, kind of about the process.

So much respect for Uncle Bill Harris.

You know, you know, putting his own money toward, this creating this opportunity for these young women.

He coached the team.

But we had different companies that would sponsor us.

I remember Hydrox-Cola, but it seemed like their company was out of Chicago.

but we played for them.

But he was always the coach, and I know he was a lot of out of his own pocket money.

He, you know, that he carried us on because he had a restaurant on Birdsell Street.

The oral histories of people like Renelda Robinson and Doris Grady Howell talk about the team itself being a safe space and how Ernest Harris, Uncle Bill, created this team that allowed them to travel the region, playing pretty competitive, fast pitch softball, and they felt safe doing it.

in the 1930s and 1940s, because of these informal Jim Crow customs, you might not know where to go.

You might not know where you'll be accepted.

But Uncle Bill was someone that people felt safe traveling with, and people felt safe sending their wives and daughters to travel around the region.

We played at Bendix.

We played at Leeper.

You know, the only thing is, and I know when the Blue Sox were playing, But we could not infiltrate those teams.

I think that was one of the things that over years, kind of bothered her.

And she always said they wanted to play them, but the girls would never agree.

She loved playing ball.

And she did, She did that.

She played ball.

That was in the early 40s.

When she stopped playing, it was almost 1960.

One of the quotes we have on the Uncle Bill's mural is from a letter to the editor that that Renelda Robinson writes in 1986, when Coveleski Field, now Four Winds stadium was built, and Renelda Robinson writes a letter to the South Bend Tribune and talking about what it meant to her.

And the first line of her letter is a future with no hope, is no future at all.

And she talks about giving hope to the young people of South Bend with Coveleski Field.

She was really into, having a coalition with other organizations.

And she's good at it too, you know, cause she, she wasn't demanding but she was relentless and I mean, until she got what she wanted, what the neighborhood needed.

I'm just happy that she made a difference, that not only did she make a difference, I think playing sports, but she made a difference in our community.

I watched the film A League of Their Own and thought it was a fantastic film.

Didn't know for sure that it was based on, truth until I came to work at the History Museum.

The film better than the film.

The South Bend Blue Sox are part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and that got started during World War Two.

In 1943, there were fears of Major League Baseball shutting to keep morale up during the war to have that national pastime.

And so Phillip K. Wrigley of the chewing gum fame, lived in Chicago and thought, women were going into the factories and taking up a lot of these roles that men had, previously.

Why not sports as well?

Mr.

Wrigley did a call for, tryouts.

These were held in Chicago at Wrigley Field, and, 60 girls, women were selected to come on as members of these teams.

So they they came from farms and cities and small towns and big towns and, they were women who had played softball and baseball and were athletes, but who also held jobs or went to school.

They came from all over and, and that's what made the league so special.

They weren't trained as women to play baseball.

They were women who played baseball, who came to form the teams.

Women's baseball, especially at this level, was certainly thought of by everybody, You know, could they possibly be skilled?

Were they here just to be, you know, to look pretty?

What level are we playing at?

The women that played in the league, which were always called girls, the girls of the league.

So a little bit of infantilization there.

But the women of the league, they first and foremost had to be outstanding players.

But, Wrigley and after him, Arthur Meyerhoff.

You know, the people in charge wanted them to also be perceived as proper ladies.

If wearing dresses or skirts was part of what they needed to do as part of their uniform, they understood that.

And they did it.

Though they were happy to share how many, bruises they got on their legs as they would slide into home plate.

And, they were also happy to share that they could play really good ball even though they were wearing skirts.

And a lot of the women, especially pitchers, would alter their uniforms.

Because especially when they were pitching underhand, they would get tangled up in their skirts so they would pin them to the side To try and help them be the best player they could be.

The Tribune ran stories, I believe, almost every week about individual women and what they did at home.

And, oh, they can even cook and, to kind of meet this interest from people, and people wanted to know where they like to eat and what they like to do.

And, even folks from far away.

There was a little girl in Georgia named Ramona who, her life's dream was to play for the South Bend Blue Sox and traveled all the way here and stayed for two weeks, to watch games And, so that appeal really was nationwide, if not just here in town.

In my mind, they are the most critical women, in the age of any sport.

Right.

women can be more than just people, having small jobs and being in the home and taking care of the family.

They were athletes.

And I think that the Blue Sox and the teams that were playing against them proved that women are athletes, too.

Betsy Jochum is the South Bend-iest of all the Blue Sox.

She came from Ohio to join the South Bend Blue Sox, she was a star from the very beginning.

Betsy Jochum was also known as Sockum Jochum.

And I believe that she got her nickname from the fans.

She hit a lot of doubles and triples.

It looks like in her stats in that, she had good speed, so she stole a lot of bases.

And she had an excellent throwing arm.

So she was somebody to be feared from the outfield.

The South Bend Tribune talked about the fact that they felt that she was the MVP of the team because of her versatility.

And that she could play these different positions and that and just her her calmness out on the field.

So, yeah, she had a lot of, I guess you could say intangibles too that led to her She didn't talk about herself.

She talked about her team.

You know, it didn't matter any accomplishments that she got was due to the fact of her teammates helped get her there.

And, so, you know, you almost would walk away from her, not realizing she was one of the stars of the league.

And a few years into her career, when the team tried to trade her away, And she stayed in South Bend for the rest of her life.

She passed away in 2025 at the age of 104.

A lot of people didn't know that the South Bend Blue Sox had even been here until the movie A League of Their Own came out.

And there was this kind of magical time in South Bend when people started to realize that this whole history had been here, and that a lot of the players had been here the whole time.

And in the case of Betsy Jochum, when people started looking into the history of the South Bend Blue Sox and the history of that league, they discovered that Betsy Jochum had been their gym teacher for decades.

And so it was really cool and really magical to find out that these heroes had been in our midst as long as we'd been here.

She loved the city.

I mean, she retired instead of being traded because she wanted to stay here.

I mean, that says a lot.

And then to see all the comments on social media after her passing from former students and things like that.

You could tell that she had a lot of people that just revered her, and, were very happy that they had, been taught by over the years.

And that's important, you know, as a teacher, former teacher myself, you want to see your students succeed and be happy in their later life.

So I'm sure that that really resonated with her.

In interviews or when you speak to players that are still around today, that's, you know, the none of them have anything bad to say about that time in their life.

They all just loved it, and they loved that opportunity to be able to do this thing that they really enjoyed.

And played professional sports that women didn't get to do at the time.

And meet all these people and the fellowship and the friends that they made and the travel that they got to do.

It was really a wonderful opportunity for them.

And going forward, they were able to, often continue in sports.

A lot of them, went into professional softball after that or, became coaches or, or things like that.

A lot of them had other professional careers, like doctors or lawyers or owned their own businesses at a much higher rate than most women in the country at the time.

at the time they were in the league, but also helped them excel even after and inspire others.

Women in baseball is a conversation that happens more than I think anybody realizes.

I mean, luckily, we've had movies about it now, and, you know, we're seeing it in a different perspective.

But I think that throughout my 27 years of coaching in South Bend at Notre Dame, it's been multiple conversations per year about women paving the way for women past them, and always being the role models to give younger players the thought in their mind that they could be something that's really special in this world.

So this is something we talk about all the time.

So those women who started in the baseball league, they're people we talk about constantly because we want to be those women for somebody else.

Those women were the reason why I think Title IX existed, because all of a sudden when those women started playing baseball, then little girls were watching them and they thought, boy, if they can do it, I can do it.

And it's who, we all have to have So to me, those women were the most pivotal women in sports of all time.

They have given so much to us, not only in their day when they played, but also today as they help the younger girls realize how wonderful it is to love a sport, or love whatever it is.

They, many of the, former players went on to become teachers, and themselves coaches, and, they have just shown to me that they have carried that professionalism and that dignity that I believe that they probably had back in the 1940s and that they still maintain today.

They did what they loved to do.

They made sure they were good at it.

And they loved the respect that it garnered for South Bend, Indiana.

My parents, they were migrant workers.

So they started migrating back and forth between, which we considered, called the North.

The north to us was Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa, you know, North Dakota, South Dakota.

So they would migrate north for, basically looking for work in the picking fields and all that, you know, apples to tomatoes to, cotton, you know, any anything that was needed to be picked.

That's what they did.

In 1950, after I was born, they were migrating over here to Michigan for the apples and peaches, you know, picking them.

In 1953, we settled here in South Bend.

I started working, not working, but playing baseball when I joined the school.

We used to go to this cow pasture and the manure, which they call it, basically.

You know what I'm talking about.

pot.

And it's basically all straw and that.

And when the sun hits it and leave it out there for two or three days, it gets like rock hard.

We used to use them as plates, you know, field plates.

When I heard that Tony Garcia, who was the one that started basically baseball in the community, in the farms, you know, when I heard that he had a baseball team, I was like maybe nine, ten years old already, and me and this other guy said, let's go see if he ll let us play.

So we went we went right here to Woodrow Wilson.

That's where they used to practice.

So he put me in, center field, put my friend on right field, and we started playing with them and we used to play with teams like Plymouth, Argos, La Porte, you know, Fort Wayne.

Milford, Indiana, you know, small communities and basically farm laborers, all farmers.

It was in like the late 50s, 60s when families started transitioning into the city.

And it was Kids were now, like, heavily into the school system.

The, high schools, especially.

The 70s, you see more of, families starting, purchasing homes, being involved in the community.

You have my uncle who was the first, you know, firefighter, Chico, you have Armando Garcia, you know, one of the first South Bend police officers.

When I met Chico as Chico Rodriguez, the pillar of the community was more so when I started at La Casa de Amistad.

And so, of course, we go to Chico's restaurant.

Right there on Western Avenue, just before Olive Street.

And then you get to the back of the restaurant.

Then he's got photos of his time in the fire department and different awards that he's been acknowledged for.

And you get to talk to him, and then he shares, oh, I used to be a board member of La Casa de Amistad.

Then I participated in X, Y, and Z. You're like, oh, boy.

You're a leader of this community.

I can't, But to come to find out, the immense impact he and others had in this community was extraordinary.

Tony s team introduced me to leadership.

And I found When I went to the Marine Corps and came back in the 70s, I decided to start my own team.

So the people that were playing with me, they, they supported me.

think of a name.

And we went around a circle and names, so the only name I liked was Los Diablos Rojos.

And I said, well, Diablos sounds like a good team, and and I could picture the color.

it kind of fitted our style.

We weren't saints.

We weren't angels.

You know, we never hit anybody.

We never got into a fight with them.

But when you see ten, 12 guys and a woman holding on to a bat, you know, these are not the guys to mess with.

One day I went to, we were at Pulaski Park and we were going to practice there.

And we were just starting into our practices and stuff like that.

And out comes, He says, hey.

He says, you got a permit for this park?

He said, well, you need permits now to get to the park.

If you want to reserve a park everybody who requests a permit has to play for a league.

So he says, what's the name of your league?

I says, well, right now we don't have a league.

He says you got to put a league name down.

Said no league name, no permit.

So I said well, we re the Mexican-American Baseball League.

He says, he wrote it down.

That was the birth of the Mexican American Baseball League.

The baseball players, when they went out to play, they not only went out to play themselves, but they brought their families with them, their children with them.

So you had family unity, you know, used to bring, you know, picnic food and stuff like that.

And they shared with the community.

We're a family that, we we went to mass.

You know, and after mass, it was especially in the summers, just gathering together.

Cousins, aunts, uncles, at there's a park right across the street from Rum Village.

It has a couple baseball fields.

And so everybody would take, my aunts would take, like, sandwiches, different foods to share.

And we just split up.

We had enough family to split up into two teams, and play softball and baseball.

My mom was like, the all time pitcher for both teams.

I remember that so clearly.

The adults with the kids, you know, side by side in the field and us playing.

And it was just so much fun.

And it wasn't just the game itself.

It was that the family was together.

A lot of the women that used to come out to the teams, they noticed that, I think they were finding themselves like, okay, we're running out of things to gossip about, you know, what?

What else do we do here?

So while the kids were out playing, they decided to go to the softball team and started playing softball within themselves.

I remember Las Tejanas really more about conversations through with my dad and my uncle, and pictures of these, really, They were women that, hard working women out in companies like AM General and all that.

But they had families.

Liz Connors came in to the area.

She, super intelligent woman, you know, a teacher.

She taught at LaSalle, High School at that time and also at IU South Bend.

But she was also came to be, the director of La Casa de Amistad.

She was a strong woman.

A strong vocal woman.

These women were my strength, were my empowerment, were like, no, you can do this and don't let anyone tell you you can't, you know.

And so I think that's what this was, even if the women didn't, I didn't even speak to them.

But I could see them and how they were living out their lives in this strength.

Baseball and It was something recreationally for folks to get involved in, but it was also something recreationally for a community that shared similar experiences, cultures and languages.

To get involved with, that they wanted to participate in.

And so just naturally finding the ability to do that is one thing.

But then organically, recognizing that probably some of the same struggles and hurdles that folks were going through were being shared before the game, after the game, with your teammates or with other teams and, and naturally that over time folks would say, well, what can we do about it?

Or how can we get involved there?

How are you dealing with X, Y, and Z?

And so it started, very quickly, transformed organically into a grassroots movement of organizing, organizing for the growth of the Hispanic Latino community, organizing for the rights of migrant farmworkers, organizing for access with, different opportunities with elected officials, the city of South Bend, and so much more.

But it all started by community just simply coming together and finding a place to gather.

And it seems that that is so centric beyond the sport that folks found an activity and a place to convene.

And from that convening conversations were had, struggles and opportunities were shared.

And then the, the grassroots organizing really happened, which is pretty special.

Whether it was a dirt lot or a packed stadium, the field was sacred ground.

I hope the young people who see this mural understand that these aren't just images of the past, but reflections of where they come from and what they're capable of.

When I was younger, I would, I got in trouble for drawing on walls and stuff when I shouldn't be.

And then my dad told me, you know, you if you're going to go out there and do stuff like that, do it on your own things.

And so I thought it was very, fitting that, here I was, you know, 20 years later, drawing this wall, his face on a wall.

But I think that it meant a lot more once I started actually putting his face on the wall, because then I started to think and taking command of, like, a team of men as a, as a baseball team, and then founding the Mexican-American team for not just his team, but then for the wider community and then, enlisting in the, the Marines the fire department.

It's just like I love being able to celebrate my father in that way.

I mean, he definitely deserves it.

And I know that there are others that would say the same.

I wanted to show the struggle and the, the hard work behind it.

I know that at the first panel that I have, you see, a woman who's standing there in the field, and you can tell that by her face, she's got a little bit more, she's tired.

Right?

She's been out there all day.

It's been.

The sun has been beaming.

you know, is, two boys that are out there also working.

And, you know, they don't have, smiles on their faces.

They know that they're out there and that it's a struggle.

But, they're together, right?

And they're out there for a purpose and they're out there building community.

And so I definitely wanted to show that within the story and then, show how that transitions, that hard work and that struggle then transitions to a better life and a better opportunity.

It was a pretty special moment to go and be at the day of the Foundry Field mural unveiling event, because, there are folks that came before us that are still with us in this community that foundationally made a significant impact in our Latino/Hispanic community, in the city and throughout the region, and to have many of them in the room or in the space all at once was even, pretty special.

To see folks from the neighborhood just come out and hear the story of the Latino community.

It was very special, It was a celebration of history, of culture and a vision for what's to come and it's permanent, which feels good.

Stories are important.

Narratives are important for us not to forget where we come from.

My dad always told me, you know, for you to know who you are today, you had to have known where you came from to know who you are in this moment.

It's that question of going back and looking back and realizing all the people that have been part of your life to be able to say, this is who I am today.

And so the mural provides that for South Bend, for the community to not to forget who they are.

As I think about our community pillars, in the community, folks that came Armando Garcia, Chico Rodriguez and so many other folks.

You realize that, the work that folks did, didn't come from a selfish nature.

It was a very selfless act for them to give so much of themselves to the community, to just do the best, to try to make a difference.

All of these freedoms, all of these, privileges that we have were fought and earned.

And, they need to know who the people were that that paved the way.

for others, not because of anything that they did for themselves.

I always in a very direct way.

I grew up in a home where, we helped our neighbors.

In the small rural areas there are not many organizations at least in those days, So we did it individually.

You help your neighbor.

we were being called a Rust Belt city.

So I was very familiar with the challenges and the problems of, first of all, of trying to get our downtown up again.

This was very challenging.

So when people came to me with ideas to renovate the city, to help South Bend get moving again, I was looking for projects that would sort of put South Bend on the map, that we were a place on the go.

So the East Race was a classic.

I was not the one that thought about it.

A group of citizens who were involved with, I think it was called Michiana Watershed Group.

They came to me and they had this idea for an East Race on the east side to help redevelop it.

Even though I hadn't thought about it I said, okay, let's go with this.

Same thing happened with the baseball stadium.

I'm not even a baseball fan, strictly speaking.

But this group came to me and they said they wanted to build the stadium and I listened to them, and I thought, well, if the stadium can be part of the downtown revitalization, that would be, that would be fine.

I'd be for it.

he wasn't a baseball fan.

And so his motivation, for building a stadium in South Bend and building a quality stadium in South Bend was, based on economic development and downtown And so that's why he selected that site, which was somewhat controversial nationally because downtown stadiums weren't as prevalent then as they are now.

First of all, we tried for a bond issue.

We just couldn't do it because we were strapped.

Public was against it.

So my staff came up with the idea of a lease purchase.

The political problem with the lease purchase arrangement was that it would have to be approved by the state board of Tax Commissioners, and and the tax commissioners were all Republican.

This has got to be a local Republican issue here, and we didn't know if we would get it.

But, we worked on it and, we decided we'd go Governor Robert Orr, had a secret meeting.

He listened to our spiel, and all he said was that a stadium sounds like a good idea.

All he said.

But he had his tax commissioners in the meeting with us.

And when it came time for them to approve it, it was approved two to one.

That's how close it was.

There would be no stadium in South Bend.

At least there would not have been any at the time.

Without the Republican Governor saying I think it's a good idea.

We had a very good affiliation with the Chicago White Sox.

We were known as the South Bend White Sox.

Larry Himes was the general manager.

Was very, very supportive of South Bend.

So we had a really good relationship.

At some point, the Chicago White Sox made a decision.

They wanted all of their minor league teams to be in the southeast.

So they made the decision to re-affiliate with another team in the southeast.

And we got the Arizona Diamondbacks.

In the first ten years, there was a steady increase in attendance.

those that were concerned that nobody would show up probably were, wrong proved wrong because a lot of people were showing up, it was great popularity.

We drew more fans than any other team in the Midwest League for a period of time.

Unfortunately, the owner, decided just to rest on his laurels, so to speak.

And for after the first ten years, the next few years, during his ownership, the investment in the team was not there.

And slowly but surely, the fan base minima became less and as a result, the team needed some infusion of new ownership and new capital.

Roger Parent has left South Bend for Haiti.

Meanwhile, his successor, Joe Kernan, has tackled refinancing the stadium, costing over $9 million.

Joe Kernan, has contributed a lot of service to the public in many different ways in the military, as mayor, as Lieutenant Governor, as Governor.

But perhaps his greatest public service achievement was keeping the team here in South Bend, Indiana, because lots of times teams run their course and the owner will sell the team.

And if the market's not working well, the team is moved.

And that's what happened in South Bend.

It was up to South Bend to buy the team.

When I say South Bend, I mean someone from the community.

And Joe stepped up to the plate, to do that.

And he did that along from both South Bend and around the, around the country, frankly, and they kept the team in South Bend.

I applaud Joe Kernan and I think it was 50 or 51, of his business partners.

I mean, they really ever want to own a baseball team?

I think the answer would have been no.

But obviously they had, you know, that civic mindset, we need to keep this team in town.

And, you know, ultimately, I think their plan was, let's just buy it, and then that'll be able to take it to the next level.

And they found the perfect guy with Andrew Berlin.

I really enjoyed meeting Governor Kernan.

Fantastic.

A war hero, a prisoner of war shot down as a Navy pilot in Vietnam, served his country, was a very accomplished, really extraordinary man.

But I had no interest in buying the team.

He called me on the phone and the phone call went something like this.

Andrew, I think you'd be great for this team.

I think you ought to buy it.

Name your price.

So I say, I don't want to be rude to him.

I said, well, I thought to myself of a price in my head that was probably less than what he was looking for, and I thought that would be the end of the conversation.

So I said, okay, Governor, if I were to buy it, I'd buy it for this.

And moments, like seconds later, he said, okay, done.

We got a deal.

And just like that, I became the owner of the Silver Hawks.

Because we shook hands over the phone.

I had never been to the ballpark until my first day here.

And I remember walking in thinking, ooh, we got a lot of work to do.

I was in around the community and there was just people just didn't care about the Silver Hawks at the time.

For me, it was there was a lot of excitement because I knew the only way we could go was up, and it just was kind of roll up your sleeves.

And, you know, I attended every charity event.

We joined chambers.

I was doing speaking engagements.

But instantly once we got out there and started sharing our vision with the community, you started to feel a little more excitement and you start to hear people talking about a little bit more.

And I think for us, And when we had our opening day that initial season in 2012, there was a different buzz, than when I first got here talking about this team.

And then instantly when we got the Cubs, you know, it was it was almost like adding gasoline to a fire.

It just took what was something that was already percolating and just exploded and took it to the next level.

At the end of the day, is the engine of growth Four Winds Field is for the city The engine of growth that it has attracted apartments, retail development, headquarters, companies being drawn to downtown South Bend.

I mean, it's been decades since that has been, you know, the feeling in downtown South Bend from what I understand.

The whole idea that I had and my staff had was that this would anchor this end of town.

It's done more than that.

It's done more than anchor it because it's become a regional facility, much as the East Race but more so, we have people coming from all over here.

And so it's done what it was supposed to do.

And more than I would have anticipated.

But you never know what, you never know what can happen.

Well, I think the biggest thing is why we want to be good keep the game of baseball alive for many, many years to come.

And that's part of the reason why we do the youth travel, out of the Performance Center is we want these kids to learn the game of baseball the right way.

Because we want this game, Well past when I'm gone.

And by being able to do things out in the community, take our players out to little league organizations, do camps and clinics here at the ballpark.

I mean, that's just one way to do that.

And, you know, it's it's exciting for us to be a part of that.

And again, the community supports us to such a great extent.

They relationship between South Bend and its baseball team is very remarkable, the city knows that they're going to be successful when the team s successful, the team knows they're going to be successful when the city s successful.

And to show that relationship and how well that has, matured since 1988, is something that's unique in the country.

And if you take care of your baseball team the way the city's taking care of their baseball team, other businesses know that that's out there for them too and South Bend tries its best to support all its citizens, all its businesses and the region.

I never imagined that I would be a catalyst.

I didn't go into this with the mission that I'm going to turn around South Bend.

That mission seemed too big, you know, for for one company, for one business.

But I learned early on that you can't own a company forever.

Can't own a brand forever.

You ultimately have to pass it on, you have to go to kind of right to the very core of what your mission is.

Your mission here is to make wonderful memories, to bring people together, to create a space where all the the crap that is going on around in the world, whether it be politics, war, crime, whatever it is.

You have the four walls of this stadium.

And inside this stadium is a happy place.

It's about life.

And how do we enjoy life in the midst of the hard times, in the midst of the hard work, there has to be joy.

There has to be play.

And I think that in regards to the South Bend community is so important for us to still even remember today.

It is that sense of connection and that community building that has such resonance with the stories, from the 20s and the 40s and the 60s and these different communities.

And that to me really captures what this is all about, the cultivation of community and the celebration of life together in this town.

South Bend, Built by Baseball, is brought to you by our Grand Slam sponsors.

Carpenters Union Local 413, building South Bend for over 125 years.

Former State Senator Doug Hunt, recognizing the preservation and appreciation of South Bend's past, its present community, and our shared duty to its future.

Our All-Star sponsors.

Our Home Run sponsors.

And our Team Captain sponsors.

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