 And I don't know who Denny was pitching against, but also Dick, he was our catcher and he calls timeout and he comes out to the mound and so I was an infielder, we had a little meeting on the mound and Dick says, listen, Denny, when I call a fastball, I want you to throw that fastball. And Denny said, well that was my fastball. And Dick said, Chuck, warm somebody up. Katie Casey was baseball man. She had the fever and she had it bad. Just to root for the hometown crew. Every cent that Katie spent. On one Saturday, her young boy called to see if she'd like to go to see a show, but Miss Kate said no. I'll tell you what you can do. Let's start off by talking about the history of Sheboygan's baseball. The first official game in Sheboygan where the team had uniforms was in 1886. And then the next year was the first year in 1887 that had Sheboygan on the uniforms. In 1890 was when Billy Lebo came to town and started the team that was to be called the chairs. And they went until about 19, they were called the chairs until 1946. And then in the 30s, that's when Hauser came and John Puzzlewitz and Buck Cross and all those guys. And then in the 40s they got affiliated, 1940 they got affiliated with the American Association Milwaukee Brewers. And that lasted until 47 when Brooklyn Dodgers, they became affiliated with Brooklyn Dodgers. And that was then the Indians. So that's, the Indians actually were named in 1947. Piece it all together, a lot of history of baseball. Let's tie in the Sheboygan is the early years when the team first got started, which was after the Kingsbury team. Kingsbury became the number one club in Sheboygan in 53 and 4 after the Indians left. And they were very good. It was an amateur team. They had some great teams. And they were sponsored by the brewery, obviously. And that lasted until 1962. That's when the brewery stopped sponsorship with the Kingsbury team. And there were a bunch of guys, I think we credit Del Olschmitt and Chuck Seikert and Bob Dortmund and Bobby Ayers, probably Carl Behringer, with actually starting, we met after this, I remember the meeting. We were sitting at Evergreen Park and we're talking about what we're going to do next year. You had known at that point that King Cole was not going to be sponsored. King Cole was not going to be sponsored. So what we're going to do is we decided we were going to play. We had a team in 1963. It was our first team. When people hear the term Sheboyganays, they think Danny Moyer. I mean, that's just automatic. But in the early years, that wouldn't necessarily been the case. At what point, Danny, did you assume a leadership role? Chuck Seikert never got enough credit for what he did to get the A's going. He was the GM. He signed it. In fact, he went into his own pocket plenty to pay the bills in that 63, 64, 65. And then in 1965, we were playing in a Plymouth tournament for third place or something, and a couple of guys didn't show up. We forfeited that game. We forfeited a couple after that. And then in 1966, we didn't have a team. And then we pretty much reorganized. They named me General Manager. Let's talk about the ball parks that the A's have played in. But we started off at Legion Memorial Park. And that was falling apart. I mean, it was wrapped infested and rotting timbers and everything. And it was about to be condemned. And then American orthodontics bought the property and we're going to turn it into a factory. And he let us play there two years after he made that decision. And the city decided to build Wildwood Park. But in the interim 1980, we played every game on the road. The original park was built in 1981. It was the first year of the new park. Then we contributed about $30,000 to that. And of course, we had a pretty viable program. So the city really felt an obligation to build a park. And of course, we did some campaigning and lobbying and got it. But we helped raise some money, helped do the design work and did some things for it. But then that was 1981. It was the first year we played there. And then in 1998, that's when we put it all, the renovation. That's when the loan came into play. And we did the whole new grandstand and the bathrooms, the skybox, and expanded the concession stand and all that. You were able to burn the note two seasons ago? Yeah, two springs ago. We got rid of that note and started another one. We were in Hock another $170,000 because we had to get rid of that backstop and the dugouts just had to be done. We had no choice. So we, new screening, new netting, new dugouts. And it's really a pretty ballpark. The main goal is eventually getting new lights. The lighting system is not, as you well know, is not good at all. And that's an extremely expensive proposition. That's something that has to be done. And we're thinking in order to do that, we'd like to build a new scoreboard because we can generate revenue by selling ads on a big francy scoreboard. That would help us with the other job. So we're kind of getting that in gear, trying to get that done. With that, we're going to step out for a minute. When we come back, Denny and Don will be talking a little bit about a family affair. Whenever somebody would get a little bleeder of a hit, we ended up following those dener hits. I always looked like he hit the ball with a rolled up newspaper, and it seemed to make contact pretty good, but it was really a good team of fun to play with. Local government, local educational institutions and local community members all use cable access TV to communicate their message. They depend upon it as an affordable means of outreach. Public educational and government access television empowers local government agencies, individuals and groups to use the media to speak directly to their constituents in a more direct and cost effective way. Make sure everyone has a voice. Support your local PEG channels. What teammate I remember the most about is, of course Gene, because Gene and I have been best friends since that day that he recruited me to play with me. 25 years is a lot of great teammates and almost many of them are in the Hall of Fame, but I have to say Lee Whitten Camp was the best ball player I played with. This segment we're going to call the Family Affair and it involves more than just the Moyer family because you also have a team and a club family. How does that all fit in? Well, I think that because we rely so much on each other to get things done, we kind of are pretty closely in that group. Scott has been the president for the last several years. He seems to have taken the presidency of the A's to a different level. We've had some really dedicated people over the years, but he's got kind of a business background. He's got an era of professionalism about him. He's not afraid to go out and beat on doors and ask for money. He's not afraid to keep order at meetings. He just does a great job. Talk about the Moyer family and how they've been involved with the program, including your daughter. Right. Well, over the years, in order for my children to see their father, when you think about it, he started out for 25 years. He was a sports writer, so that was weekends and nights. He also was general manager of the Sheboygan Red Wings football team. So this was just what we had to do to see him. David and Tim both played with the A's along with playing in high school. Correct. So they have knowledge from all aspects. And then my daughter Debbie came along and she ended up being a singer, a National Anthem singer. So she put her little two cents in it. We had one night, Marty, where my wife and my mother-in-law were in a concession stand. Debbie St. and National Anthem. Tim played third base and David managed. What did you do? I was doing my thing in a press box. There's a whole lot that you do, Donna. Talk about the different jobs that you've performed over the years and are presently doing with the ball club. There's so much background stuff involved in this organization that people don't know. They go to the game and that's what they see. But when the game is over, he has to do the stats so that the next day when there's a game, there is an updated insert in the program. And so he's up typing late at night. And when it's, you know, one in the morning, you're not too sure what he's typed. So you definitely have to proofread that. So you're a proofreader. I'm a proofreader. We have monthly bingos and concession stand. There's so much involved in getting that concession stand together because the scheduling and thank goodness for the diamonds, because those parents do work all of our home games. You have to order it. You have to stock it. You have to clean it. So there's a lot involved besides just selling the food. You can't go without mentioning his wife, Donna, who's been there every step of the way and supportive and in her own right putting forth a lot of time and effort. How are the diamonds involved with these? Well, financially, we pick up the cost of their insurance policy. They're covered under our policy. We run youth nights for them. They have a night that the diamond kids come out to a game and they partner with the A's. One of their pitchers goes out on the field with our pitcher and their catcher and their outfielders and stuff. And so they're introduced before the game. They get a big kick out of that. They really feel good about it. It's really a good way to keep them together and keep the parents know what we're doing. Then we treat them up in the skybox. It happens the open at night. We buy them some pizza and so on and stuff. So they feel like they're being treated a little special. And it's making a difference. We've had a couple of three, four players now who came up through the diamonds that have turned out to be pretty good players. I don't know if they necessarily fall underneath the athletic club's umbrella, but they're certainly part of Cheboygan Baseball and that is the Legion team. Are they involved in any way with the club and could be called a family? We're getting closer and closer because they need us because of the ballpark situation. We need them because they're our feeder team and our relationship is getting much, much better. It never was bad, don't misunderstand here, but it's just that we're beginning to realize how badly we need each other. And they've really come a long way these last few years in terms of organization. They're a parents' group and they've reorganized a couple of times now and they're really doing a nice job. They've had some good leadership these last few years. So I think, I'm glad to see that. I'd like to see more of that. I'd like to see the high school baseball booster clubs and the Legion booster club and the Diamond's parents in our group really turn into one big, massive organization. I think that'd be the best for Cheboygan Baseball. I would imagine over the years when you think about the people that come into the park and there are certain fans that are there pretty much year after year. They're part of the family too. Oh yeah, absolutely. And they come to our banquet when they can and they're at the game whenever they can be there. We actually started the last couple of years as a fan of the year award. Yeah, I was going to bring that up. Yeah, it's some of our regulars who have gotten it in the last couple of years. Yeah, that's been there a long time ago. We do the same thing with some of our members where we give them the Golden A Award, correct? But this fans thing, I'm glad you mentioned that. We're talking about our family and we're talking about our fundraisers and our sponsors but we don't have fans. We don't have a team either. They're there all the time. They're hollering rally and they're getting us going. This past year, our members really dwindled down because we had, was it five or six of them that had died and they were core people. Yeah, we lost our mom. We lost Gates Gare. We lost Snipe Van Vigo. We lost Dick Schneider. We lost Darlin Wiesman. We lost Darlin Wiesman who was just invaluable and of course Chuck, so it was a tough year for us. When we come back, we'll have Denny talking about some of the players, former players, teams and opponents of the Chewbacca Nays. So stay tuned. I guess the most fondest memory I have is probably just meeting all the different guys. The camaraderie we had with all the players and the time after the game as well as during the game and getting around, joking, having fun and it's just a fun thing to do for your whole summer. Bacteria is the leading cause of tooth decay which is the number one chronic childhood disease. Ugh, that ain't no fairy tale. What? Tell the kids of America how to prevent tooth decay. Do I get a superhero costume? A tooth fairy? Kids of America. You gotta brush them, floss them and rinse them twice a day. Visit the dentist and go to americastoothairy.org to help rescue a kid from pain. Let's get her done. Legion Park was probably like Wrigley Field. It's got the mystique. It had the brick walls and the vines going up and the tree in right center field. But it also had thousands of rocks in the infield and the lips on third and first were terrible. Let's start off with the players that have played with you. Who would you classify as your best players? Well, Lee Wettenkamp comes to mind as being probably number one or close to a Jason Bartelt is right there. And of course, Gene Mann, who's just been a tremendous player for us for years and years and years. Those three guys, Dave Gehr, he's gotta be one of the top kids. We've had so many, I made a list of some, because Charlie Cooley, Rick Rice, Ron Hare, you know, those guys. I remember that one season, Rick had, boy, he was just outstanding. I mean, to the point where he thought he might get some kind of a look from the major leagues, which didn't happen. See, and there was a guy too that never had the benefit of high school baseball. He probably would have signed. We've probably never seen him. Left-handed pitcher could run and throw like crazy, hit the ball out of the park. One game we played Cedarburg, he pitched a three-hitter or something, shot him out, hit a home run in one game. That's one enough. He had a great, he was a good player. But I would say those guys, and there's so many of Charlie Cooley who's a good player. Tom Graham's a good player. And lately, well, Randy Wilkie. My goodness, again, Randy and Ron and all those kids that won that first year. There's just so many of them. It's so hard to come up with names. And these last few years, you know, we've had some, Clay Schwartz was there for a number of years, was a good catcher. And now we've been stocked with these UWM guys a couple of times. Timmy Patzman's as good a player as we've ever had. And who are some of the kids that came in and played with the A's and went on to sign a contract with the major league? I looked it up just before we came. We've had 30 different people that have played professionally. So before, like Ron here, before they came to us, but for the most part after they left us. And we've had two guys play in the big leagues, Jack Taschner and Jared Washburn. A couple of pitchers. Washburn started a World Series game. That's pretty amazing. There were four different championship teams. In 68, you won the Land of Lakes League championship. And then there were three state league championship teams. In 68, we won the Lakes League. We lost in the Grand Championships. We won our Northern Division. And that was with Rick Greiss and Ron here leading the way that year. Charlie Coleman and Dick Larson. And then we had a very good team in 71. We didn't win anything, but we got to the quarterfinals of the state tournament. That was a good ball club. And then we didn't win it. In 81, we had a good team. But we didn't win a championship again until 1991. And that was, we caught the class of 86. Kind of came together. Ron Wilkie and Kenny Nasey and Tom Gardner and Gary Fritch and all those kids. Along with Gene Mann and Wet and Camp, we had a great blend of experience and young people. And it's all true. It just, that team was 49-9. David ran that team. I'd probably say that my finest memory with the A's had to have been the first state league championship we won. 1991. Something that we hadn't done previously that was a priority. And I think any more, I'd seen it coming together for a number of years. But that was finally the year that everything culminated. It had the right mix of veterans and younger players. And then we won it again in 97. That was when Jason Bartelt and those guys first came up and we had good pitching that year. And then again in 2000. 2000 was when the two new hosting kids, Mike Casper and Jeff LeFever. Casper was like 13 and two or so. And Fever was 12 and 0. And we had Wilkie and Bartelt, Tom Eckert. I don't know if I mentioned Tom Eckert. It was an outstanding player. So then we've had some great kids over the years. If you were to classify them or rank them, who would be your biggest rival and why? Well, in the early years, it has to be the blue ribbons because they were just, I mean, they were a step above everybody. They were outstanding. And that was our biggest chief rival in the state league. When we started out, it was Denny Rue up there put together quite an assemblage of people that, you know, better players than we had and was always a team to beat. These later years, Lombard is just, some of our older players won't even relate to Lombard, but they've just been so dominant these last few years. He's out of the Chicago area. He knows all the coaches. He gets the top notch kids, you know. Out of the different colleges. The different colleges. He's been good. Janesville, Cloweter and those guys for years were a good team. Madison in the 80s was a good team. The Janesville Aces in the state league, we had a terrific, respectful competition against. I can't say it was always lovey-dovey, so to speak. Madison Anchor had a lot of the big 10 ball players from Madison on it and they had a very, very good team and a lot of good left-handed pitchers. Looking at managers, who comes to mind? Well, Denny Rue did a lot more than that. He kept it together. There's a lot to be said for showing up every year, you know, keeping your guys together. And they were together for a long time, a long time. It's the same with Chuck, you know. People say, well, he wasn't that good a manager. He was that good a manager. But he held things together. And that makes you a good manager in itself. You're an autotone player and you're the first one. You know, it puts a lot of pressure on a manager. And Chuck handled it so well. I felt like I was a home-towner right from the start and ended up being my home team. And it was a home team for 25 years. I never felt, and I give a lot of credit to the manager for, you know, how he handled it. And Chuck Diker did a heck of a job with that. I think my son was as good a manager as we've ever had. He knew the game. He understood people. He was tough when he had to be tough and fun when he had to be fun. I think he did a good job. I'm sure I'm prejudiced. We're going to step out again. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the present day Sheboygane's organization. I found his memory of playing with the A's was probably winning the state league championship in 1991. No question that if you play long enough, you hope you win the championship then. 1991, after 20 years, we finally accomplished that. When you're behind the wheel, always watch for people walking and biking. It's Wisconsin law to give bikes at least three feet when passing. In Wisconsin, the laws are the same for bicyclists and motorists. So if you bike, ride with the traffic and obey stop signs and lights. People ride bicycles to go places, get exercise, reduce pollution, save money, and have fun. Watch for people riding bikes when you're driving. Share and be aware. We're all responsible. Regent Park had a lot of charisma and it was a great place to play, but I was a home run hitter and 435 in the left center field corner versus 365, 370 at Wildwood. There's no question about it. Let's talk about the present day Sheboygane's and I'm not the only one that thinks this, by the way, is what happens to Sheboygane's baseball when Denny Moyer retires or is gone? I think we'll sustain it. I think there's enough people that care enough about it to get it going. You know, we started, we did our new constitution years ago and we pretty much followed that. We've got our committee structure set up and we've got some tremendously dedicated people. You know, that's the one thing I don't like about this, everybody calls it Denny Moyer's team and Denny Niez, but we've got not only people with families, we've got Berkovitz's and the Schreaters and all the Brezonic family and the Hinzies and I'm leaving some out, there's tons of them that are just down the road that they don't say no to you. You call them and you ask them, can you get this done? They get it done. You know, can you help us tonight? Can you help us at Bingo? Can you do the concession stand? Can you get some water off the field? They just show up and do it. Really dedicated people. So I think if I drop dead tonight or something, I think that it would continue. I really do. Talk a little bit about what is involved in running the Sheboyganese and I'm talking about, and Donna has mentioned this, you know, you're down in the basement night after night working on things for these. What are you doing? Well, it starts in January with fundraising. You know, it takes a lot of money. It's a $200,000 budget here, pretty much year in and year out. So we get all our letters out, we get people going and we're talking to college coaches all the time, getting our team lined up, getting our personnel managers lined up, getting the field lined up. And between Eric Leesman and Terry Berkowitz, I've just kind of let that alone. Those two guys are just getting that done for us. That's the start, then cleaning up the ballpark every year, getting things ready, lighting up, scheduling for concessions. Getting ready, you mean field preparation? Field prep. Screens up. Yeah, and Scott and his group go out there with the power washers and get all, you know, all that stuff has to be done. So it's a big job. Just to get ready for the season. And once the season starts, there's all kinds of issues. We've got enough people, it all has to rain. It's always got to rain, so you're messing around with that and calling umpires and concession people and worried about the other team going to show up and getting all the nights lined up. We have about 40 different group nights every year and that takes organization. That's what you do down at basement all night, is get things organized. It's his true avocation. It's not his vocation, but his avocation. You know, if you go to his house in the middle of winter, you know, he's down in his basement office. We're now into the season and it's game night in Sheboygan. What's involved in organizing a night at the ballpark for the community? Well, first of all, it's making sure you got a game. Umpires got to be there. The other team's got to be there. Your guys all have to show up. The equipment's got to be there. The bats and the balls. The PA's got to be working. The scoreboard's got to be working. Concession stand has to be operating. You got to have somebody at the ticket window. You've got to have the parks got to be cleaned up. You've got to have somebody lined up to run the games on the field for the kids. You've got to have announcers lined up. You've got to have all these things going. So it can be a circus. Somebody's got to do the frying in the backyard, set up for the tailgate parties, and tear it on for the tailgate parties, and all those things. It's a big opera. It's a circus. It's like putting the tent up and taking it down every night. That's kind of what it amounts to. Yeah, game night is a big event for our entire organization. I mean, the fans see the game on the field and what goes on in the field with the games and the other activities that we do. But there's a lot that goes behind that. But again, it's not all me. I mean, we have different people that just take care of things, and it gets done. Somehow it all gets done. What's involved with the fundraising? It's sustaining the program as foremost. We're never going to be able to park note if the team falls. So we've got to keep the team on the field every year, and that's pounding on doors. Selling those ads and selling season tickets and getting people out to the park and hustling group nights and getting that done. And then we do as much as we can in terms of big fundraising. We're beating on doors. We're contacting people. We're asking for help, and hopefully we'll get it done. The golf audience, we've had it now for 10 years, and it's one of our, I would say, outside of bingo and the money that we make at the park on game day, it is the next biggest fundraising event for the organization. And the Diamonds program. Kids are getting good schooling, good education. Over the years we've done a number of clinics. It isn't something we do every year because you've got to have the right people to do it. It just doesn't always work. And of course we give scholarships every year to high school kids. Let's go back to the fundraising and just talk about major sponsors in particular because I know they play a big part in sustaining the program. Who are some of those major sponsors? Well, we have several. We have six or eight of them. Culver's Foods and Culver's Restaurant. Trilling True Value Hardware is up there now. Charter Communications is up there. Wyoming Sports Center is up there. Culver helps us out. Alliant helps us out. Pepsi Cola and Larry's Distributing is probably our number one sponsor. I have to say that Larry's is our number one sponsor. And they have been for years. They're just a great, great company. All of these are Trilling and Culver's and all of them. We could get along with them. Well, I want to thank you for participating in the program. It's deserving and we certainly hope that the Shibuyganes continue as an organization for many, many years to come. Thanks a lot, Denny. I really appreciate it. With that, we're going to sign off. Thanks for watching everybody and we'll see you down the road. Denny Moyer has meant more to the Shibuyganes and baseball and Shibuygan, I think, than just about any groups or persons that you could ever combine. And Denny's credit is very receptive to new ideas and new thoughts and he is very, very willing to listen to everybody's ideas. Denny was as he is now but then even more so the real driving force behind everything. Truly, I don't think there would be baseball on Shibuygan if it wouldn't be for Denny. He has done so much. If there's anybody that gets credit for the existence of the A's and probably for a Wildwood baseball part, it would be Denny. He's everything. He is the program. Denny Moyer, without him, I don't know that there'd be a Shibuygan A's today. As a former player, I just want to say hey Denny, thank you for everything you've done. It's been a great run and I appreciate everything you did and I know all your players, too. I'd like to say hey, thanks a lot, Denny. Good luck in the future, you and Donna and the boys and the grandkids and keep enjoying baseball. That's what you do best.