Backyard Adventures

BACKYARD ADVENTURES 2015 Pike Publishing 45 What began as a class project to attract tourists and locals alike to significant baseball landmarks along the Interstate 64 corridor – including the Gil Hodges mural located at the intersection of Main and 9th streets in Peters- burg – has resulted in what organizers have named the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail. The Heartland Historic Baseball Trail also includes the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in Jasper, Gil Hodges Field in Princeton, Bosse Field in Evansville and League Stadium in Huntingburg, as well as the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory in downtown Louisville. According to Jessica Lindauer, sales and marketing director at the Dubois County Visi- tors Center, the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail came to fruition through her involvement with "Connect with Southern Indiana," a lead- ership program sponsored by the University of Southern Indiana. "For that program, you have to work on a project," Lindauer said. "So I talked to my boss (Dubois County Tourism Commission executive director Kevin Manley) about what could we do tourism-related for this region of the state, and this was his idea. So I took it to the class." Subsequently, Lindauer and two other members of the Connect with Southern Indiana class – Arnie Temple, facilities project manager at Kimball International, and Andy Robling, senior biopharmaceutical rep with Amgen Pharmaceuticals – began working on the project in 2012. Huntingburg's League Stadium and Evansville's Bosse Field, where scenes for the 1992 movie "A League of Their Own" starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell and Lori Petty were filmed, were quickly identified as trail sites, as was the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame. "We kind of researched the region to see what other attractions there were, and Andy is actually from Petersburg, so he knew about the Gil Hodges mural, and then the Gil Hodges Field was something what we kind of found online," Lindauer said. "Through work, I know the executive director at the Gibson County CVB so he kind of gave me all the information and helped me with the Gil Hodges Field." "It was kind of like, with my job, we were looking for different ways that we could promote our county but also, for the Connect program, it should include the whole region," Lindauer added. "So that's kind of where we got the idea." Lindauer then contacted officials with the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory to see if they were interested in being included on the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail. "Since they're so big, we knew having them a part of it would be very beneficial," Lindauer said. "I think when Jessica came to us, she had already contacted the other members of the trail," said Anne Jewell, executive director of the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. "She had all of that to present to us when she was making her case, and we loved the idea that they were willing to come across that river, on into Kentucky, and wanted to include us, too. We were honored to be asked." "Some of the ques- tions we might have asked or concerns we might have had were based just more on the fact that we're a brand that's been around for 130 years and we have to be careful and pro- tect our brand," Jewell added. "But they satisfied all of that, and that's not easy to do, honestly. We're not always easy to work with, and there are good reasons for that. But we had no qualms about what was being put together here. These are our kind of people." During the initial planning for the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail, the decision was made to apply for a tourism trails development grant that was being offered by the Indiana Office of Tourism Development. "It was a matching grant, so we contacted all the people that we thought would be inter- ested in partnering with us, to try to get the matching grant," Lindauer said. "We ended up not getting it, unfortunately, because we had bigger plans, like putting more signage up on the interstate to draw them off and making our own websites, just different things like that." After receiving word that the grant applica- tion had been rejected by the Indiana Office of Tourism Development, a disappointed Lindauer contacted each of the sites. "And they were still all on board," Lindauer said. Jewell said that the decision to pursue de- velopment of the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail – even without the support of the Indiana Office of Tourism Development – was an easy one. "Even though they didn't get the grant, it was just too good of an idea to not go ahead and do it anyway," Jewell said. "I loved the sort of, 'Hey, we're going to do this anyway' kind of attitude and approach, and we were on board for sure." The trail's sponsors – including the City of Petersburg, which made a one-time $500 contribution, and German American Bank – contributed enough money to cover the cost of signage at each of the half-dozen sites and bro- chures, with some left over for maintenance, according to Lindauer. Also sponsoring the Heartland Historical Baseball Trail financially are the City of Hunt- ingburg, the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame, the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association, the Gibson County Visitors and Tourism Bureau, the Evansville Otters, the Dubois County Tourism Commission, the Du- bois County Bombers, the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, and Screen Printing Plus of Vincennes. In addition, officials with the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory agreed to host the trail's website. "We look at it as part of our contribution to this effort," Jewell said. "We do love getting the exposure in Indiana and the help to drive tourism to us, too. So we don't look at this as a one-way street. We feel like we are benefit- ting from this as well as contributing to it, and that's what makes it worthwhile to us." Jewell said that the trail's connection with "A League of Their Own," which was based on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s, will make it very attrac- tive to fans of the film as well as to baseball aficionados. "That movie still resonates," Jewell said. "We have items in our gift shop that have one of the favorite quotes from the movie – 'There's no crying in baseball.' They're great sellers." "People still connect with that movie, and I think that Hollywood is so much fun for folks," Jewell added. "So to have that kind of con- nection as part of the trail, I think, is a great benefit." Lindauer agreed. "The Bombers have done a lot with the attendance at those games, and they're really wanting to make that a historic attraction that people from all over are wanting to come see," Lindauer said. "Think about the Field of Dreams movie up in Dyersville, Iowa, which brings in millions of visitors a year. We're just saying 'A League of Their Own' is as good or even better than that movie. So why can't we do the same thing here with League Stadium and Bosse Field? " Jewell said that the trail's connection with Hodges – a first baseman for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets who later managed the Mets to a World Series win in 1969 – was also important. "The whole story of his career, during the war and very honorable service – he is, I think, just a great symbol of what the heartland represents," Jewell said of Hodges, who was born in Princeton and graduated from high school in Petersburg. "This trail being in the heartland, I think that he's a great face for it." In addition to the 52' x 16' mural painted by local artist Randy Hedden and dedicated in 2009, a one-and-a-half-sized bust of Hodges – which was dedicated in 1998 – is located nearby, inside the rotunda of the Pike County Courthouse. A few miles north of Petersburg, a monument to Hodges stands near the Gil Hodges Memo- rial Bridge, which carries Highway 57 over the White River into neighboring Daviess County. "It's something that Petersburg's known for, being the hometown of Gil Hodges," said former Petersburg Mayor Frank Coleman. "It's something that a lot of people are interested in. I think it's all positive. I don't see any negatives to it." Lindauer, who has distributed a full-color brochures that provides information about each of the trail's six sites, said that word about the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail was spreading rapidly. "I've had some people kind of ask about it," Lindauer said. "They've heard a little bit about it, and I just enlighten them about how the proj- ect came out. They all think it's a really neat idea and unique." On June 8, 2014, a ceremony featuring Lindauer, Coleman, Huntingburg Mayor Denny Spinner, Jasper Mayor Terry Seitz and Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame executive direc- tor Ray Howard was held at League Stadium to formally dedicate the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail. Each of the mayors and Howard were presented with a Louisville Slugger bat with the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail logo engraved on it. "You know, it's been a couple of years since we first heard from (Lindauer), and it's fun that this is now all actually coming to life," Jewell said. "We're happy to be a part of this effort to promote the history of baseball in this corridor, and we'd love to see it extended from here." For more information about the Heartland Historic Baseball Trail, visit www.heartlan- dhistoricbaseballtrail.com. H I S T O R I C B A S E B A L L T R A I L hodges' mural on heartland historic BASEBALL TRAIL STORY AND PHOTO BY ED CAHILL Map courtesy of Louisville Slugger

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