The atmosphere at the park is pure county fair. There's a feeling of safety, completeness, and contentment as you sit in the stands. We watched the bat boy, Bucky Ludwig, go through his pre-game ritual of filling his helmet with 56 pieces of Double Bubble gum and trotting back to his customers in the dugout. No tobacco here. The concessions are fine, but fans often cut through neighboring yards on the first-base side to get some Pack's Frozen Custard, a rich concoction topped with homemade black raspberry sauce.
Winners frequently give their prize money back to the team.
The emotional connection isn't hard to miss. Jim Weissenborn, vice-president of the Rebels, notes the games routinely draw crowds equal to half the town's population. Everybody does it for the love of the game. If we break even, pay the bills, and buy some uniforms, we've had a good year. At one point, we saw our kids sitting with a player on a ledge underneath the scoreboard in far right field, just past the visiting team bullpen.