Decatur Baseball Way Back Wednesday Event on July 15th

     Wednesday night, July 15th at Millikin University’s Workman Field History of the Heartland will be hosting a Way Back Wednesday event!  Gates open at 5:30 and here’s some of the special activities:

     *First 50 people to the History of the Heartland table will get a collector coin celebrating Millikin’s 125th birthday.
     *Decatur baseball legend Roe Skidmore is scheduled to be there to great fans and sign autographs.
     *Special trivia and between inning interviews.
     *Bret Robertson will have his book Founders, Champions, Cons and Thieves:
     Baseball Adventures in Decatur 1866 – 1900 available for $25 and will sign books.
     The book covers Decatur’s first organized baseball teams and the six baseball stadiums, or “baseball amphitheaters” as they were then known, built in Decatur between 1866 and 1900.
     Decatur’s first team, the McPhersons, played at the “Railroad Grounds” located just northwest across the tracks from Decatur’s Union Station. Isaac Archer, a millwright who played on the McPhersons team, once hit a ball so hard it soared through the open window of a house on distant Sangamon Street, bounced out a back window, and rolled through the back yard beyond.
     The book is also available at HomeGrown Collective Decatur, 1090 W Wood
Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm and Saturday 10am – 4pm
     Proceeds from book sales benefit History of the Heartland to continue preserving the stories of our past. The book is also available by searching the title “Champions, Founders, Cons, and Thieves: Baseball Adventures in Decatur 1866-1900 ” on eBay. Message History of the Heartland Facebook page or call 217-791-1385 for more information.