Fitzgerald Stadium brings back a flood of memories

By Darrell Shoemaker, Journal Sports Writer | Wednesday, August 17, 2005

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RAPID CITY -- The thousands of fans attending the American Legion World Series in Rapid City this week will be enjoying the event from the comfortable confines of Floyd Fitzgerald Stadium, a fixture on the local sports scene for nearly 50 years.

The facility has enjoyed a colorful history, hosting everything from circuses and church services to championship contests. For parts of three decades, the venue served as the home of the Rapid City Chiefs, a dependable anchor in the Basin League summer circuit which produced numerous major league stars such as Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer, Don Sutton and the best player to ever wear a Chiefs uniform, Frank Howard.

And it is home to one of the country's most successful American Legion baseball teams, Rapid City Post 22.

However, in June 1972, what was then known as Sioux Park Stadium was one of the community hallmarks that received considerable damage in the tragic Rapid City Flood. The tragedy killed 238 people and changed the community forever.

In the wake of the tragedy, volunteers worked to get Sioux Park Stadium repaired and ready so the Chiefs and Post 22 could resume their playing schedules. The community needed a diversion in the weeks after the tragedy and baseball provided that escape.

"This community really rose to the occasion after the flood," said Post 22 coach Dave Ploof. "This community has always been behind Post 22 baseball and baseball has always had a great following.

"It was really important to get the stadium repaired and the field ready to play. People needed something to take their minds off the flood."

Ploof said the flood took its toll on the stadium.

"All the fences were gone and there was water filling both dugouts," he recalled. "They were filled with the biggest trout I'd ever seen. There was water and debris everywhere."

Ploof said Post 22 was to play Helena the night of June 9 when an evening rain picked up intensity.

"It rained and rained. It seemed like it never quit," said Ploof.

And for several hours, it didn't quit as flood waters destroyed lives and property. For several days after the tragedy, concern mounted over nearby Pactola Dam.

"We were playing out of town the following Saturday, and we got word that Pactola had broke and that the community had been wiped out. I had to make a phone call and found out it was just a rumor.

"It was hard on all of us at the time."

Pictures in the 1973 Basin League yearbook provide a glimpse of the work that went into the stadium renovations. Floyd Fitzgerald, president of Black Hills Sports, Inc. and board member Leonard Shepherd helped move tons of dirt into the outfield. Another director, Owen Emme is seen with Ploof, Fitzgerald and some of the Post 22 players nailing up new signs on the newly-constructed outfield fence.

Workers are shown moving the left-field tower and putting the tower on a new platform. Members of the South Dakota National Guard also lended a helping hand.

Ploof and others say the repair of Sioux Park Stadium was needed to give the community a chance to rest from the long weeks and months of cleaning up the damaged and flooded areas of the community, which stretched from Dark Canyon to the eastern edges of town on Omaha Street.

"It was important to get the stadium repaired as the community was having a hard time after the flood," said retired attorney Homer Kandaras. "People needed to get away and they could go to the park and watch a game and forget about things for a while."

In the middle of all the repair work at the field was Fitzgerald, a long-time Rapid City businessman. Sioux Park Stadium was renamed Floyd Fitzgerald Stadium in the late 1970s.

"Floyd was a good leader, able to keep things together and a good organizer," said Jan Laitos, who served on the Black Hills Sports, Inc. board with Fitzgerald. "He was all for the young people. He went all out."

Kandaras agreed.

"He was a paint salesman and he loved baseball," said Kandaras. "The Fitzgeralds were all athletic. Floyd was passionate about baseball."

Kandaras and Fitzgerald were teammates on a successful Rapid City amateur league baseball team in 1950. Kandaras says all five Fitzgerald brothers were part of the team. Floyd was the youngest of one of South Dakota's most famous athletic families.

Morris Hallock of Sturgis, who helped organize the main rival to the Rapid City Chiefs in the Basin League in the early 1960s, the Sturgis Titans, says every team from Wall to the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead had a Fitzgerald playing on it for many years.

"Floyd Fitzgerald was a wonderful guy. He could command a lot of support and had the respect of people," said Hallock.

That support and respect were needed several times between 1956 and 1972.

A group of Rapid City businessmen applied for the city's admission into the Western League in 1956. When the application was turned down, the businessmen formed Black Hills Sports Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of amateur and semi-professional athletics in the Black Hills area.

The group filed for admission into the Basin League, a summer baseball circuit that featured college and professional players. The league would admit Rapid City only when one of the founding teams dropped out of the league. In January 1957, just a few months after seeking admission, Rapid City was admitted after the Chamberlain Chiefs withdrew from the circuit.

Fitzgerald and other organizers were faced with two challenges in 1957. Within five months, a baseball team had to be compiled and a field developed. An ad in the 'Sporting News' brought in applications from 200 players but building the stadium proved a more daunting task.

Black Hills Sports received permission to build a stadium on city property at Sioux Park. Al Steinmetz chaired the Sioux Park Stadium Association and a fund drive produced $35,000. Combined with generous donations of time, equipment and materials from the business community, Sioux Park Stadium was completed by the spring of 1957.

In the 1960s, capital improvements were made at the stadium, resulting in a debt of $34,000. A fund drive spearheaded by the Stadium Association and some of the notables of Rapid City's past helped eliminate the deficit. Ken Guenthner, Ep Howe, Frank Bullias, Owen Emme, Jim Howard, Ken Roberts, Bill Baumgartner, Jim Quinn and Fitzgerald are mentioned as helping to spearhead the drive to reduce the deficit.

Early in the drive, Rolly Smith, manager of McDonalds, made a donation of 10,000 coupon books that were sold for $2 each by local little leaguers to help reduce the stadium debt.

The flood in 1972 and a snowstorm in March 1973 damaged the stadium. Again volunteers, under the guidance of Black Hills Sports and the leadership of Fitzgerald, helped repair and renovate the stadium at a critical time in the city's history.

For eight years, Fitzgerald served as president of Black Hills Sports, which worked to promote and develop youth baseball and other sports in the Rapid City region. When Black Hills Sports, Inc. was created in 1957, there were few opportunities for the youth in Rapid City and the Black Hills but by 1963, over 2,000 youngsters were participating in nationally-sanctioned leagues such as Little League, Pony League, Colt League and American Legion.

"He loved baseball and he had a passion for the game," said Ploof. "He supported baseball all the way through from the young kids all the way up."

Fitzgerald also served on the local planning board under four different mayors. He chaired numerous regional and state bowling tournaments and was director of the National Elks Bowling Tournament in 1968. He was an avid bowler, hunter and fisherman and helped scout some of the talent for the Chiefs on numerous trips with his wife Darleon.

The Stadium hosted church services and the Shrine Circus in the 1960's. In 1969, the Stadium played host to an exhibition game between The King and His Court, a four-man softball team headed by Eddie Feigner against an all-star team from Ellsworth Air Force Base.

The 1969 Chiefs program called the stadium 'western South Dakota's multi-purpose outdoor recreation-activity area.'

"I remember when we used the field for football practices, too," says former Basin Leaguer Lee Shepherd of Rapid City. "For a time, there was talk about having football games there but they decided against it."

When the Basin League folded after the 1973 season, American Legion Post 22 baseball became the featured attraction at Floyd Fitzgerald Stadium. For 35 of the past 41 seasons, Post 22 has reigned as the South Dakota American Legion champion and each spring, a collection of dedicated volunteers and baseball parents work to get the nearly 50-year old stadium ready for action.

And for only the fourth time in the history of the Stadium, that action continues deep into the month of August as Rapid City plays host again to the American Legion World Series.

Contact Shoemaker at 394-8440 or at sports@rapidcityjournal.com