Semi-pro baseball back in Marion America’s pastime will hit the basepaths in Marion this summer, when the town fields its own team in the six-member Kitty League.
Marion Baseball Club LLC will take the field in June, competing with the likes of the Dawson Springs-based Tradewater Pirates in the three-year-old collegiate summer league. The Marion Bobcats will play 25 home games at Marion-Crittenden County Park during June and July, with all but Sunday contests being evening starts.
“I think it’s great, I really do,” said Bob Swisher, a Marion native and member of the last organized baseball team to call the city home.
The team is the brainchild of Gordon Guess, who rounded up 17 other local investors to back the club and get it off the ground. A passionate baseball fan since his father took him to games as a child, Guess has been working on such a venture for years, but rounded third on his dream after his retirement from The Peoples Bank last summer.
“It is the American pastime, I don’t care what people say,” Guess said Monday, after confirming the last of his investors.
Cletus Hunt, one of the 18 Crittenden Countians to have pledged $1,000 initial investments with another $1,000 at a later date, doesn’t follow the game much anymore, but as a child could be found on sandlots and diamonds across town.
“If you grew up in Marion, you grew up playing baseball,” he said.
Hunt, like most of the other investors, lives in Marion proper. He made his investment as a contribution for the benefit of the area.
“Anything you can get to attract people to Marion makes the community better,” he said.
Swisher, who now lives in Paducah, played on the 1949 Marion Red Sox, an amateur club in the Twin States League and the last to call Marion home.
“For such a small town to have a baseball team of this nature is great,” he said.
On Tuesday, Swisher fondly remembered the grand slam he hit in an 11-run fifth-inning explosion that sank Smithland 15-7 in what became the last game of organized league baseball Marion would host. According to Guess, a brawl between the two clubs – documented in the June 10, 1949, issue of The Crittenden Press – spelled an end to the three-year-old Marion team. Soon after, the league kicked Marion out of the fold.
The Bobcats will field a team of 22 young men, many junior college or university athletes from the region who are looking for a few summertime at-bats to hone their skills and gain exposure. It's a sacrifice, as players of the Kitty League do not get paid, rather they pay a fee to play the game.
“You get at bats. You get to be seen,” Guess explained.
Bobcat players will be managed by Steve Fowler of Madisonville.
The Kitty League is officially the KIT League, an acronym for Kentucky, Illinois and Tennessee, the general geographical area from which teams hail. The term “Kitty” is a throwback to the Class D professional league that that made its home in the same area from 1903 to 1955.
Marion joins the new Kitty League in 2008 as a replacement for Farmington, Mo., whose owners disbanded the team due to other commitments.
League President Randy Morgan said the communities that play host to the teams have fallen in love with them.
“People have really just taken these players into their hearts,” Morgan said from his Paducah home.
Guess is counting on the community's open arms for both the success of the team and a roof over players’ heads. While he has made tentative arrangements for some of the players, others will need a place a stay once the action begins.
“There are probably going to be a few with a hometown in northern Illinois or Staten Island (N.Y.),” he said. “They can’t commute like some others.”
Morgan said community support is essential to keeping the league viable, and not just through ticket sales.
“In Fulton, they would tell you (the team) means quite a bit,” he said.
The league president said such affection is illustrated by the fact that Fulton residents have gone so far as to donate furniture and groceries to Railroaders players.
“They become local heroes,” he said of club members.
It also provides an identity.
“We haven't been here before,” Guess said matter-of-factly. “It’s our own franchise. Our own team.”
Guess, like Hunt, grew up playing ball in Marion, whether in a back yard or grassy field – making a game with as few as three boys by playing homemade variations like cat-eye and bottlecap. He and his dad, who shunned any other sport, bonded over baseball.
“There’s nothing my dad liked better than to take me to a game,” Guess said.
They would also listen to Harry Caray calling St. Louis Cardinal games on the radio. Guess recalls thinking a town was little to nothing if it didn’t host a baseball team. In his youth, cities like Paducah, Hopkinsville, Madisonville and Owensboro each had organized baseball.
“This puts us a league up on Princeton,” Guess said of the Bobcats. “You have no idea what that means to me.”
The team will play on the high school field at Marion-Crittenden County Park which is appropriately named for Guess. The diamond has carried the name Gordon B. Guess Field for several years.
“I decided before they named it I wanted to do something like this,” he said. “After that, I didn't want to have my name on something that’s poorly done.”
That’s why he’s been pouring in money and time, adding 250 chair-back seats and a covered pavilion at the field. Next will be an enlargement of the field itself and traditional below-ground dugouts for the teams. A new concession stand and combination batting cage-storage facility are also in the works.
“We’re trying to make Marion a better place,” Guess said.
Guess believes low cost, summer evening entertainment will do that. Season tickets will be $115 for the 25 home games, with general admission tickets only $5. Various additional promotions, he hopes, will draw at least 125 a night to the stands.
“That’s our break-even number,” he said. “Of course, we hope to do better than that.”
Through promotions, including Ladies’ Night and Old-timers Night, inexpensive fun and good baseball, the club hopes to draw varied, large crowds. Guess is even counting on strong baseball interest in Fredonia and Salem to fill seats.
“It’s good quality entertainment,” he said. “I hope people will come out and see us play.”
Morgan agreed the league is certainly not a get-rich venture.
“It’s a civic thing these investors are doing,” he said. “You’re not going to make money on it.”
Bobcat investors range from retired business people to those in their late 20s, with careers in insurance to agri-business.
“Most of the people haven’t even been in the same room together,” Guess said of the wide array of personalities.
While the Marion baseball venture has become his own field of dreams, Guess wants to shy away from personal attention. He’s called in lots of favors, aside from the initial investors, to make the park and team a reality.
Bobcats players will take the field in team colors of red, white and royal blue. The team’s white vest-type uniforms will have Bobcats emblazoned in blue across the chest in block letters. Undershirts will be blue for home contest, red on the road. The traditional baseball cap will be blue with a red M, trimmed in white.
But why name the team the Bobcats?
“Because we’ve got plenty of them around here,” said Guess.
Kitty League teams for 2008 will be based in Marion, Fulton, Owensboro and Dawson Springs in Kentucky; Union City, Tenn.; and Sikeston, Mo.
Wooden bats, nine-inning games and the designated hitter rule all apply in league action.
Marion’s home games will be broadcast on WMJL.
Local man jailed in Henderson for
trying to pull shotgun on deputy A Crittenden County man is jailed in Henderson County after allegedly trying to pull a gun on a police officer.
According to police reports, Henderson deputy Jay Workins was patroling along U.S. 41 South at 1:30 a.m., Sunday when he got behind a vehicle that was swerving. He suspected the driver might be impaired, so Workins stopped the vehicle.
When the officer got out of his cruiser, the suspect exited his vehicle simultaneously, according to a report in the Henderson Gleaner newspaper. The driver was identified as Crittenden County resident Kenneth Brian Fitzgerald, 20.
In his right hand, Fitzgerald was holding a Mountain Dew beverage box, according to a news release issued by the Henderson County Sheriff's Department. But with his left hand, Fitzgerald allegedly reached into the vehicle and began tugging at a loaded shotgun. The gun's sling became entangled in the steering wheel and the deputy order Fitzgerald to the ground.
Workins told the Henderson newspaper that he had a split-second to decide what he should do.
"I pulled my gun and ordered (Fitzgerald) to the ground or I was going to shoot him," the officer told Henderson reporter Beth Smith.
Instead, Fitzgerald let go of the gun and started running. He was chased by the officer, but the suspect disappeared behind some buildings. The officer radioed for backup which soon arrived at the scene, including a state police and a K9 unit. The officers started searching together and found the suspect's cap, a shoe and the Mountain Dew box he was holding. The box contained what police said was three ounces of marijuana.
Fitzgerald was later found hiding nearby behind a guardrail on the Pennyrile Parkway, news reports said.
Fitzgerald was charged with driving under the influence, expired plates, failure to wear a seat belt, trafficking in marijuana less than eight ounces (firearm enhanced), first-degree fleeing/evading police and possession of drug paraphernalia. The trafficking charge was enhanced from a misdemeanor to a felony due to the presence of the firearm.
The investigation led Henderson authorities to a home where 20-year-old Jake Edward Cummings was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and first-degree possession of cocaine.
Workins told the Henderson newspaper that when he saw Fitzgerald trying to pull the gun, "I was scared. I'm not going to lie. I knew it was me or him, and I wanted to go home to my babies."
"It all happened so quickly and all I had time to do was react," he told the Gleaner. "I never want to shoot anyone, but I was prepared to. I thank God the (gun) got caught. Because if I'd shot and killed him, I couldn't have lived with it if I'd killed someone and then it turns out the gun wasn't loaded. I'm glad it all worked out the way it did."