Abandoned Chapter 2 “Gem City” and a Rich Baseball Tradition

 The city of Quincy, Illinois overlooks the Mississippi River and has a population of 40,000. The “Gem City” designation comes from the 19^th century when the city was a flourishing transportation center for riverboats and rail services that linked the city to many destinations along the river.

Quincy is 110 miles west of the state capital city, Springfield, and 135 miles north of Saint Louis, Missouri. Chicago’s Wrigley Field is over three hundred miles north of Quincy, but the city still has a fair representation of both Cardinals’ and Cubs’ fans which makes for some friendly “discussions” in diners, barber shops and other popular gathering sites. Occasionally, a White Sox fan even joins the fray.

Quincy College, now known as Quincy University with the name changed in 1993, is a private Franciscan university founded in 1860. The student enrollment is 1,300.

The on-campus athletic stadium, originally named Q Stadium, was built in 1938 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and initially owned by the city of Quincy.

In 1984, the city sold the stadium to Quincy College. The name of the facility, made of large limestone blocks and concrete, was named QC Stadium and later QU Stadium.

The football side of the stadium is located beyond the right field fence and right center field wall.

The baseball history of the stadium includes almost 30 years of professional baseball beginning with the Quincy Gems of the Three-I League (Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana) from 1946-1956. The Quincy Giants of the Midwest League called Q Stadium home from 1961-1962. The 1962 and 1963 seasons saw the New York Mets farm club, the Quincy Jets of the Midwest League, at the stadium followed by another Quincy Jets squad in 1964.

Those 19 years of professional baseball saw future big leaguers; pitcher Tom Sturdivant, 1B Marv Throneberry, infielder/outfielder Woody Held, OF Whitey Herzog (who later became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals), SS Tony Kubek (one of all-time favorite Yankees player), and scores of other future major leaguers who played at the “Rockpile.”

The Quincy Cubs had the longest consecutive affiliation with a big-league organization as they played in the Midwest League from 1965-1974, Pitchers Joe Niekro, Dennis Lamp, Gary Ross, Bruce Sutter, and catcher Ken Rudolph were all Quincy Cubs and future big leaguers. 
The stadium then became home for the Quincy Rivermen from 1974-1987. The Rivermen played in the Central Illinois Collegiate League (CICL) and again more future major leaguers used Q-Stadium as a building block on the way to the big leagues. That group included outfielders Kirby Puckett and Jim Lindeman (both players from Bradley University), pitcher Jeff Brantley (Mississippi State) and pitcher Dan Quisenbery (Laverne College (Ca.).

The city of Quincy was represented in the major leagues by two hometown players.  El Tappe was a native and a lifelong resident of the “Gem City.” He attended high school and Quincy College, beginning his professional baseball career in 1947. He made his MLB debut for the Chicago Cubs on April 24, 1954, and made his final big-league appearance for the clubs in July of 1962.

El and his twin brother, Mel, ran a sporting goods store in Quincy for many years. We purchased most of our baseball equipment for the 1989 season from Tappe’s.  El also attended a couple of pre-season practices and worked with our catchers. It was a real pleasure having an experienced major leaguer on the field with our young players. El Tappe died in 1998 at the age of 71.

Jim Finegan was also a native of Quincy who attended Quincy College and later Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Jim made his major league debut with the Philadelphia Athletics on April 25, 1954, one day after El Tappe. He was the regular third baseman for the A’s and in his rookie season hit .302 in 136 games and finished second in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. His final major league year was 1959 playing for the Baltimore Orioles. Finegan later became the head coach for Quincy College for the 1980 and 1981 seasons compiling a record of 53-38. Jim died of a heart attack in May of 1981 at the age of 52.

 I remember walking on the stadium field a day or two after I arrived in Quincy for my job interview. There was just a light covering of snow during the early days of December and the students were nearing their final exams and the conclusion of their fall semester.
 I could almost feel the history come to life as I slowly ambled in the direction of the shortstop position. I remember thinking, ‘One of my favorite Yankees, Tony Kubek, began his professional career right here.’ 

The stadium was showing its age, and I guessed a realtor would say, “It’s what we call a “fixer-upper, but it’s got great potential.”

 I walked underneath the stadium seats beginning behind the third base dugout. There, inside the cold cement walls, was the old locker room area and some rooms the size of offices where maybe the manager and the coaches dressed and later went over the day’s starting lineup. As I continued forward, I could tell where the concession area and restrooms had been, but of course the water had been turned off for years and these areas were in extremely poor condition.

I retraced my steps and as I came closer to the entrance where I had started my fascinating journey through the cavernous building, I bent down and picked up a white cardboard-like piece of stiff paper with two columns of names that lay on the concrete floor. It was a 1976 major league all-star game ballot. It had been a while since the tunnel had undergone any type of even moderate cleaning.

When I spoke to Chad Gooding, one of my players on the 1989 team, I asked him as I did all my players what he remembered about our season. No specific order or pre-determined number of highs and lows was requested. Whatever the guys wanted to say was fine with me.
 Chad, a sophomore from St. Louis, was not with our club during the initial indoor workouts. 

He came up to my office one day and asked if he could try out for the team. To the best of my knowledge, I believe that Chad took some batting practice in the old north gym, and I hit him some ground balls. He swung the bat well and was adequate with the glove but had noticeable problems throwing because of an injury (dislocation) to his right arm suffered in high school. As he was recovering from that injury he slipped on some steps and injured his right elbow.
 It was apparent that he would be limited to first base and maybe get some game swings as a DH also. He was a good athlete and had a tremendous will to play. He became a contributing member of our 1989 team.

Chad’s first response to my question about memories of that season was going to the stadium and helping clean up a couple of the areas underneath the bleachers. We made a part of the tunnel area usable so that we could store our equipment, dress for the game, and even used one of the rooms as a place to escape between games of a doubleheader. A couple of small space heaters had a game day tug-of -war with the bitter March winds, but they allowed the players an opportunity to temporarily escape the cold or maybe just find a quiet spot for a few minutes. 

We swept the floors, threw every piece of garbage into trash bins, and brought in a few chairs and an ancient couch. I even had a full-size advertisement cardboard figure of Kevin Costner standing in front of a field of corn in “Field of Dreams.” I picked that up at Blockbuster’s.

I found Chad’s comments very illuminating, and it explained the circumstances well. Thirty-five years later he had fond memories of just being a young college baseball player. He recognized what had taken place in that stadium decades before and appreciated the fact that in 1989 he became part of that history. 

1990 QC photo, left to right- Brian Ritzheimer, Steve Ebersohl and Joe Nardi. Nardi was a freshman third baseman on the 1989 team.