Fox Valley Renegades founder and longtime coach Matt Schacht remembers attempting to change the bulbs atop the light poles at historic Jockey Field in East Dundee.
“The first year we were there, we found the belt they used to wrap around the pole to climb up there and the spur things for your shoes,” said Schacht. “I went up that pole and got up to where the foot pegs were and it started to creek. Dude, I got so scared I thought I was going to wet my pants.”
Those poles (much more on them later) and a variety of other quirks, stories and memories are the things that have made Jockey Field (located on Third Street in East Dundee) one of the most historic softball parks in Northern Illinois – sporting a legacy that dates back to the conclusion of World War II.
Schacht and the rest of the Renegades family have brought back the once-thriving field that boasted some of the best men’s fastpitch softball around from extended dormancy after the slow death of church leagues and men’s fastpitch and have transformed it into a modern, full-amenity youth facility that plays host to a plethora of girls fastpitch travel games each spring and summer.
Jockey Field will host the second annual Fox Valley Senior All- Star Game at 6 p.m. Monday. The game, featuring the top senior high school softball players in the Fox Valley area, is sponsored by the Fox Valley Renegades, the Northern Illinois Lightning, the Daily Herald and Cami Sports & More.
Schacht, a veteran youth sports coach in the Elgin area, started the renovations of the field after ceding from another travel softball organization and starting the Renegades 7 years ago.
“We kind of put the cart before the horse,” said Schacht. “We formed the Renegades really without a place to play. When I was growing up, my parents were members of the VFW in East Dundee. And parents would take their kids there and you’d go to Jockey. I hadn’t been there in years. I wondered what the place looked like. So we all decided to take a ride down there in the middle of winter. It had that immediate look of tradition with the old backstop and the old wooden lights. We asked each other if we thought we could revive it.”
And revive it they did. After getting permission from the property owner (Patricia Thompson, whose father, Woody, owned the property before her) to use the field, Schacht and the Renegades embarked on a refurbishment project that, through hard work and the help of players, parents and sponsors throughout the years, has turned the field into the envy of youth softball facilities (complete with sprinkler system, concession stand and indoor bathrooms).
“There’s no substitute for a vision and hard work,” said Schacht, also noting the tremendous success of Renegades’ teams on the field the past 7 years.
“It’s incredible what we’ve been able to do in seven years.”
But back in the day Jockey Field, originally constructed from funds raised from a pair of charity basketball games according to the Renegades’ Web site, was the place to be for men’s fastpitch softball.
“There was a lot of church league fastpitch and a lot of semi- pro ASA,” said Larry Freeman, a 1961 Dundee High School graduate who used to watch his father “Bull” Freeman play. Larry Freeman is a longtime area high school softball official and was a longtime member of the Jockey Club.
“When the church league was going big, you’d have the whole town going down there on any night of the week. There were a lot of great players.”
Carpentersville resident David Lueck, another longtime member of the Jockey Club, remembers plenty of close contests.
“You’d have teams coming all over from DeKalb and Genoa- Kingston,” said Lueck, a 1939 graduate of Dundee High School. “You’d have games that were 1-1 going 12-14 innings.”
As famous as the stories were about the players and the classic contests, there is equal lore about the field itself.
“The field was an old stockyard,” said East Dundee resident Milt Waschow, who coached the Jockey Club fastpitch team in its heyday and still coaches a women’s softball team in Cary each week. “I was a kid when they poured those light poles. They just dumped bags of cement in there. Those poles (sunk 12-15 feet in the ground) in those (55-gallon) drums have been sitting there since 1947.”
Schacht pointed out that a railroad bed runs underneath the surface through centerfield. Standard Oil, he said, used to have oil towers on the property that held fuel for surrounding homes. A peat moss bed also sits beneath the surface and Schacht says natural wells are below the ground as well. One of the field’s original tractors is still at the field.
“It’s been many things besides a boys and girls softball field,” said Schacht. “To understand the history behind it is cool.”
The famed wooden light poles remain in place to this day and have caused major headaches over the years due to them formerly being in the field of play.
“They put the fence up and the poles were inside the fence,” said Elgin resident Steve Gabler, who played at Jockey. “It was scary when you were chasing a fly ball sometimes. And then if you hit the pole, it was a ground rule double. It didn’t matter if you hit the top. Everybody complained. If you hit it that high up it probably would have rolled to the school (the old Dundee High School which is now the current Carpentersville Middle School). But I wouldn’t change anything. I miss playing there. It was a lot of fun.”
Gabler was one of many talented performers that passed through Jockey over the years. His cousin is Daily Herald Fox Valley sports editor John Radtke.
“He was an awesome pitcher,” said Radtke. “My dad used to take me to Jockey to see Gabe pitch when I was like 10 or something. He could throw a softball as fast as anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Dundee-Crown athletic director Dick Storm was also a talented fastpitch player during the Jockey heyday and remembers those poles vividly.
“Those polls being in play were dangerous,” said Storm, who lauded the efforts of the late Don Swanson and Jim Smith, who both helped with the upkeep of the field when it was dormant prior to the Renegades renovating it. “All they had was a tire around the poles. Someone chasing a fly ball full-boat, that wouldn’t stop anything.”
There were other “home field” advantages as well at Jockey.
“Certain parts of the season you could be carried away by mosquitoes,” said Gabler. “There were other times when the fog was so thick, you couldn’t see the outfielders.”
Even today there are factors that sway in favor of the home team.
“The moths came out the other night for 15 minutes,” said Schacht. “The other team will complain they got a bug in their mouth. Our girls just spit them out.”
Lueck can remember the original construction of the concession stand.
“It was a chicken coop,” said Lueck. “We pulled it across the street and paneled it and put a door on it and used it as a stand. In the original club house, my dad nailed his foot to the rafters. He put the nail right through the shoe and couldn’t move.”
Storm was part of a core group of Jockey Club players that included Steve Trebes, Dave Swanson, current Hampshire High School softball coach Mike Wendt, Jim Roesslein and Daryl Wells. Waschow was their coach.
“I really got hooked on fastpitch softball,” said Storm, whose father, Elmer, also played at Jockey. “It was a good run. We had a group of us that played at Immanuel Lutheran. We were probably responsible for killing off the church league. We were so good nobody could keep up with us. We’d play other churches that had players that were just starting out or had never played before. We had a couple of guys from the Jockey Club and we would just smoke teams.”
Storm didn’t just dabble in softball.
“We played games 37 days in a row once,” said Storm. “There were times where we’d play 100 games over the summer. I fell in love with the sport. My dad used to take me to see Immanuel play. It was like watching the pros. There was no fence at the time. It was like Field of Dreams with cars parked in the outfield and then they had to have rules if the ball bounced under a car. The allure to me was putting myself out there 10-20 years later. We had a good team, but not a great team. We just hung around together. That was our thing.”
Wendt grew up three blocks from the park.
“Oh boy, that was a lot of fun,” said Wendt, who played several years of fastpitch there in the late 60s and early 70s. “I played sandlot ball there from the time I was 10-years-old.”
So where exactly did the name of the field come from? There are varying stories, but all with plausible explanations.
“When the husbands were playing the wives would come along and be jockeying the umpires,” said Freeman.
“They’d razz the other teams when we would go to DeKalb and St. Charles,” said Lueck. “They would get on the other teams. The Jockey Club.”
Waschow had his take on the name as well.
“People would come by when they were working on the field and yell, ‘look at those jockstraps over there working on the field. They’re just a bunch of jockstraps,’ ” said Waschow, a 1952 Dundee High graduate. “There were the jockstraps making the swamps into a ball field.”
And there was an actual Jockey Club, complete with memberships, dues and age limitations.
“There were 35 members maximum and you had to be recommended to join,” said Waschow. “You had to be over 18 because they drank beer. They asked me when I was 19 or 20. Dues were 10 bucks a year.”
“We had quite a few members,” said Lueck. “Masi’s in downtown let us use a place.”
The other feature that distinguished the field was the community involvement.
“There was that old, local town mentality,” said Storm. “It was the place to go. It was the only thing in Dundee at the time. The neighbors were always so supportive. You never heard a complaint.”
“Everybody went over to watch softball,” said Waschow. “The war ended in 1945 and the field was built around 1946-1947. Town sports were big. Everybody sponsored a team. Sometimes it used to cost you 10 cents to get down that road. If you wanted to sit down and watch, they wanted a dime.”
Storm still goes by the field on occasion.
“Every now and then I ride my bike and stop by and watch and wonder how we avoided those polls when we played,” said Storm.
“Time marches on, but that doesn’t mean the memories don’t live on.”
Comments