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The tales of South Bend's industrial leagues are legendary. Every factory had a team, many of them had their own fields, and the matchups between its marquee teams drew crowds into the thousands. These same teams would play scrimmages against Notre Dame's baseball team, travel across the Midwest to settle regional rivalries, and hold their own when barnstorming tours - like the one Babe Ruth got suspended for - came to town.
Oak savannas like the one at the Speedway used to rule over the Midwest. Now they are among the most threatened ecosystems on the planet. Our portion of the continent used to be covered by 50 million acres of these savannas. Now there are fewer than 30,000 remaining. The land behind the Speedway represents some of the final crumbs of the Kankakee Marsh, and now there is actually a discussion about whether or not we should make those crumbs go away too, all so we can put an auto scrapyard in their place.
There's a story about baseball Hall-of-Famer Juan Marichal that leads to a LaPorte County home builder named Al Shinn. For those of us who lived during the 1960s, Marichal's name is magic. He was a 10-time all-star pitcher for the San Francisco Giants from 1960 through 1973. During his heyday, he had six 20-win seasons and ranked near the top of the National League's best, along with Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson.
My wife grew up hiking in Arizona, endeavoring through picturesque canyons and soaring Saguaro forests, following well-marked trail maps toward inspiring cascades with names like Angel, Havasu, and Seven Falls. So when I told her that we had waterfalls in Indiana too, she was pretty excited. And because she deserves the very best, we started our adventure at the top of the list, driving three hours to Williamsport to survey the tallest waterfall in the Hoosier State.
Rudolph Wellington Donmoyer was born in 1847 on a Pennsylvania farm that wouldn't be able to hold him for very long. By the age of 15, he managed to enlist to fight in the Union Army and saw just about as much action as anyone on either side. Donmoyer was involved in at least 45 battles, including the Battle of Gettysburg.
You might know Major General Anthony Wayne as the namesake of Fort Wayne. If you're a connoisseur of craft beer, you might recognize him as the inspiration behind the Mad Anthony's label. But if you're like all of the people I met and interrogated on my walk along Wayne Street through the heart of downtown South Bend, you probably don't know him as a Founding Father of the United States of America.
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