Buckets of Buds


Sure signs of spring have arrived. Golfers are out in droves, advertisers are extolling the virtues of the latest gardening gadgets and products, and the “Boys of Summer” are back at it doing their best to whack baseballs out of the park or prevent the other guys from hitting them “where they ain’t.”


For me, spring always sets off a bit of reflection back to the days when I served as Sports Editor of the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. Spring meant a new crop of young pro baseball players would arrive to start a 124-game schedule in the Midwest League. Covering the team, a farm club of the Minnesota Twins, was my primary task until falling leaves signaled the end of summer. The local club played home games at Witter Field.


Witter Field was a nice ballpark, but no one would mistake it for Yankee Stadium. The press box perched atop the roof over the stands directly behind home plate resembled an enlarged chicken coop.


The box was clean, but far from fancy. It included a counter across the area beneath the two open windows and a few folding chairs. Bill Nobles and Dave Van Wormer joined me there on many summer evenings. They served as public address announcers, and broadcast most of the Class A minor league games for radio station WFHR. They occasionally asked me to fill in some dead time with a statistical report. Those moments probably set radio announcing back quite a few years.


Equipment perhaps unique to our press box occupied one corner. A pail tied to a lengthy coil of rope stood ready for a midway point in the game when one or all of us usually got thirsty. The beer stand was directly below the press box.


We would put two dollars in the bucket, lower it to the beer dispenser, and wait until he tugged on the rope. We then reeled up three Buds and our change.


Our radio broadcasts and newspaper reports didn't suffer. We almost always confined ourselves to one Bud per game. For young Wisconsin men, that hardly amounted to anything. Fans near the beer stand often greeted the appearance of our bucket with a cheer, so we thought we were making a worthy contribution to fan entertainment in addition to slaking our thirst.


Ah, springtime at the old ballpark.

Sideline Humor

In 1964, I assumed much good humor was to be found in sports.

When my publisher at the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune decreed I would write a weekly column on subjects of my choice, I decided to end each offering with a sports joke. Some national stories were available from a news service we subscribed to. I was sure I could find enough humor in and around local sporting events to fill in any blanks and end my column with a rib-tickler every Wednesday.

I was overly optimistic. Despite efforts by many comics and writers, there really weren’t all that many good sports jokes around. After a couple of months, I dropped the “leave ‘em laughing every Wednesday” strategy for want of material. That dearth of sports witticisms hasn’t changed much in the ensuing 45 years. But on Sunday morning, I think I “heard a good one lately.”

I was telling a dedicated Detroit Lions fan of my intent to root hard for the local favorites that day, for two reasons: (1) my beloved Packers were idle, and (2) the Lions were playing the Vikings. Minnesota would be led by an aged quarterback named Favre, who readers of this blog may know is not one of my favorite guys.

“Didn’t you hear the news this morning?” the Lions’ booster asked. “They’ve renamed the team. From now on, the Lions will be known as the Detroit Possums. It makes sense. They play dead at home, and get killed on the road.”

He said it; I didn’t. The “Possums” played true to form that afternoon. They suffered their 22nd consecutive loss on the road, which ran their record to 40 losses against just 3 wins since the midpoint of the 2007 season.

Even a joke at the Lions’ expense eases the pro football pain around here.