award-winning journalist and author

A Game of Their Own

They play the national pastime a little differently in Lake Tomahawk, snowshoe baseball capital of the world.

Sports On Earth, July 2014

LAKE TOMAHAWK, Wisc. — They play the national pastime a little differently here — on snowshoes. In the summertime. The local team has a decided home field advantage, having learned to shuffle along the eight inches of coarse sawdust spread throughout the infield. On this particular Monday evening in July, Don Hilgendorf, 76, a retired Division III baseball coach and the driving force behind this unique brand of entertainment, gathers his players for a pregame pep talk.

The only team to beat his Snow Hawks in recent years has been that night’s opponent, the Chicago All-Stars, who swept a two-game series last summer and won a special July 4 contest the previous Friday, 10-9. “You remember what happened last year,” Hilgendorf tells the 14 players on snowshoes gathered around him. “We don’t want that to happen again.”

From his second-floor perch behind home plate, the public address announcer, Jim Soyck, 79, the voice of snowshoe baseball and an unapologetic homer who calls strikes for the Snow Hawks’ pitcher, compliments hometown fielders and exhorts the hitters to rally, ups the ante with his pregame announcement: “We are out for a little revenge tonight. I’ve got a $10 bet on our guys.”

Soyck and the crowd of 1,000, approximately the population of Lake Tomahawk, cheer the Snow Hawks’ early 1-0 lead. They spread beyond the bleachers in their lawn chairs along both foul lines and sit on the grass beyond the right field fence. Some of these people stopped by as early as 6 a.m. that morning to reserve bleacher seats with blankets, a time-honored tradition. (For the July 4 game earlier that weekend, when the crowd pushed 3,000, they staked their seats out two days in advance.) Admission is free. “This is the big thing in Lake Tomahawk in summertime,” Soyck says.

It’s true. There’s not much else competing for entertainment on Monday nights in Lake Tomahawk, a pause along State Highway 47 of four bars, several other establishments and no stoplight in the Northwoods. Indeed, the local area television station reports on the games and even puts together a team to challenge the Snow Hawks annually. Many of the fans arrive more than two hours before the 7:30 p.m. start for the pregame cookout hosted in the adjacent pavilion by one of eight local service organizations serving brats, burgers, hot dogs, soda and pie slices. The pies are the big draw. This evening there are 83 of more than three dozen varieties, all homemade by the ladies of the American Legion post, selling for a dollar a slice. (On July 4, they sold out slices from 159 pies before the game was half over.)

Welcome to a place that Norman Rockwell would envy.

This year marks snowshoe baseball’s 53rd summer season.

* * *

They’ve been playing snowshoe baseball for more than half a century in “Lake Tom.” It began in a more traditional fashion, playing on snowshoes in the wintertime with a ball painted red so they could find it in the snow. Snowshoe baseball flourished in the area during the ’90s when there were about 40 sponsored teams representing every small town in this resort area. But as players retired and fans yielded to windchills, the winter game withered. No matter, because by then the summer version had flourished. Back in 1961, town chairman Roy Sloan had the vision to replicate snow with coarse sawdust in a park a block off the main strip so they could play in warmer weather. The unusual attraction distinguished Lake Tomahawk from the waterski shows prevalent in surrounding resort communities and caught on. This year, with games played every Monday from June 20 to August 29, marks the 53rd summer season.

Hilgendorf expanded the spectacle when he took over in 1998. He raised the funds to replace the rickety press box behind home plate with a solid two-story concrete structure, refit the bleachers with aluminum benches, replace the decrepit backstop with chain-link, erect bright new lights, build comfortable restrooms and update the food service in the pavilion, which used to stretch a hose from a neighboring house for running water. Most significantly, he elevated the quality of play. Back in the day, the visiting team felt like the Washington Generals, giving away games to please the home crowd. But Hilgendorf scoured the area for players with talent, assembling a group of young guys driven to win. “We used to think of it as kind of a joke but the fans were really into it, so we figured if they’re taking it that seriously, we better take it seriously,” says third baseman Jeff Smith, who has been playing ten years.

The improvements have similarly enhanced the crowds. Over the past 15 years, the number of fans has nearly tripled. Some fans have been coming regularly for 20 years or more, then there are those who’ve gotten the bug more recently, like Barbara and Gerry Brahm, a retired couple from Milwaukee with a house in the area. They started coming four years ago to watch their granddaughter’s boyfriend play. The granddaughter has since married the ballplayer, who no longer plays, but Barbara and Gerry remain regular fans. “It’s crazy to watch,” Gerry says, gobbling a piece of pie before the game. “It’s a fun game. They’re not out of blood.”

For some games, spectators have to stake out their seats two days in advance.

* * *

The Chicago All-Stars have got game. They’re led by Dave Maize, who played four years in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ farm system, rising as far as Triple-A. Now a keg-shaped, 43-year-old cop in Glenview, Ill., he’s still got soft hands, a strong arm and a powerful swing. He’s the only guy Hilgendorf has seen hit a ball onto the roof of the American Legion Post in left field — a feat Maize has accomplished twice.

Maize has put together what could more aptly be called an all-family team with his two brothers, a pair of cousins and their two sons, rounded out by a couple of friends, almost all of them softball players back home. They have made it an annual tradition to bring their family up for the weekend, camping out at the Maize parents’ home. 

The locals appreciate the economic boost the nearly three dozen guests bring to the area, spending money on food, beer and gas in town. Before the game, Soyck, who owns Jimmy’s Happy Daze bar along the main drag, singled out Judy Maize, the family matriarch, announced it was her birthday and led the crowd in a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”

Maize and his boys can hit — they score six runs in the top of the second inning to take a 6-1 lead — but they stumble some in the field, and the Snow Hawks notch three runs in their half, some on errors, to narrow the lead to 6-4. 

Tod Niemuth scores one of those runs, dropping a blooper in front of Maize in left field for a base hit and later scooting home on another hit with an aggressive bit of base running, sliding into home head-first. You can’t slide feet first — you’ll bust up your snowshoes or they’ll smack you in the face.

When Niemuth bats again, Hilgendorf, sharing the P.A. duties with Soyck, tells the crowd, “Tod is one of the youngest players on the Snow Hawks. He’s 57.” Niemuth grins. He’s actually 58, the oldest guy by eight years, having played with some of his teammates’ fathers, but still wiry and fit. Niemuth’s own dad played — he’s one of a half dozen of second generation players on the current Snow Hawks (“It’s in our blood,” he says) — and Niemuth started himself when he was 14 years old. Having slowed some over the ensuing 44 years, he has ceded the outfield to younger players and taken up residence at first base, where he has endured plenty of jammed thumbs and dislocated fingers, but he has no plans to retire. “It [snowshoe baseball] has been in my lifestyle since I was a kid,” Niemuth says. “I never grew out of it. As long as I’m still healthy, I’ll keep doing it. I guess it’s sort of an addiction.”

* * *

Just to clarify, they’re not actually playing baseball; they use a 16-inch softball without gloves, which explains the jammed and dislocated digits. The snowshoe part is for real, though, each player outfitted with a pair of oval-shaped, wood and rawhide, 30-inch-long Bear Paw shoes. “The trick is being able to run in snowshoes,” Niemuth says. “For some people, it’s as simple as putting on a pair of gloves.” For the others? “It’s not uncommon to see them falling on the way to first base.”

After a few years acclimating to the snowshoes, the Chicago All-Stars move pretty well this evening, though their shortstop takes several tumbles in the field and one baserunner gets tangled up trying to beat out a groundball to first base, belly flopping into the sawdust. Meanwhile, some of the Lake Tomahawk players glide so gracefully across the field and basepaths that it’s easy to forget they’re shod with an impediment. Yet they’re equally imperiled. When the left center fielder (they play nine in the field plus a catcher) races back for a drive he catches it over his shoulder, stumbles slightly and takes several strides to steady himself beyond where the sawdust is spread. The crowd sends up a hearty ovation as much for his athletic catch as for his ability to avoid a nasty scrape on the gravel.

* * *

After four innings, the Snow Hawks are ahead 7-6. The Chicago All-Stars score two to go up 8-7, but the local team rallies again to reclaim the lead, 10-8. That’s where the score stands, top of the seventh, when the first Chicago batter, Patrick O’Gara, strides to the plate. The 43-year-old pipefitter by day senses what’s up — the home team’s about to serve up a Globetrotteresque gag. He goes along with it, takes a mighty cut at a muskmelon painted yellow like a regular ball and splatters the melon guts all over himself, the catcher and the ump. The crowd laughs, like they’re seeing this for the first time even though it’s been a staple of the Monday night game for decades. “You gotta swing,” O’Gara says afterward. “A melon hitting the ground isn’t any fun for the fans to watch, so you swing as hard as you possibly can.”

The Chicago crew picks up their play in the field, nearly turning a 6-4-3-2 triple play but the runner slides in safely ahead of the throw home. That sustains another Snow Hawks rally that sends the score to 16-8, which is where it remains until the final out, when Niemuth squeezes a throw from the pitcher to complete a 1-3 play. 

The players line up to shake hands, pose for a photo together, share some laughs with the fans and retire to the “afterglow,” as much a part of the Monday night routine as the pies and muskmelon. This evening, fans and players from both teams rehash the game over pizza and pitchers of beer at the Shamrock bar two blocks from the field.

Niemuth outdid Maize, reaching safely in each of his four at-bats, including two doubles and scoring three runs. The Snow Hawks exacted their revenge after Friday night’s defeat, reasserting their dominance, and Jim Soyck won his bet. But if you didn’t know the final score, you would have thought the Chicago side won from looking at Patrick O’Gara. The sweat has soaked through the shoulders of his T-shirt but he’s all smiles. “This crowd is huge for a goofy game in the park,” he says. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Photos by John Rosengren

© John Rosengren

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