NORFOLK – A story of an ‘unusual’ ball field will be presented at the Norfolk Public Library Tuesday evening.
According to a release, Jeff Barnes will showcase a story on one of the most storied baseball fields in Nebraska titled “Sand Hills and Sandlots: The Amazing Story of Rushville’s Modisett Ball Park”.
The Tuesday, September 13 presentation at 6:30 p.m. is sponsored by a grant from Humanities Nebraska. This is the final program of the Norfolk Public Library Summer Speaker Series and is free and open to the public.
Barnes currently resides and writes in Omaha and is a western history author and speaker who also was a former newspaper reporter and editor.
“Sand Hills and Sandlots: The Amazing Story of Rushville’s Modisett Ball Park” is a recounting of the ballpark built by ranchers that went on to host a nationally famous Major League baseball school and a southpaw from Nebraska who struck out Mickey Mantle. In 2014, the ballpark underwent a complete restoration for the park’s 75th anniversary, in large part funded by a Nebraska publisher who grew up in Rushville and played at the park as a boy.
Barnes said, “it’s truly incredible for a town of less than 900 people to have such a storied park. And even more incredible for the park to be rebuilt for a second 75 years. But it’s a wonderful tale of how the right people in the right community taking the right actions can come together to create a shrine to the great American pastime.”
The 45-minute presentation includes historic images and stories of Rushville’s relationship with baseball. The talk is taken from Barnes’s book, “Extra Innings: The Story of Modisett Ball Park”.
Barnes is a board trustee with the Nebraska State Historical Society, former chairman of the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission and one of the top-requested speakers with Humanities Nebraska. He is the author of seven books of Great Plains history, including “Cut in Stone”, “Cast in Bronze: Nebraska’s Historical Monuments”, “150 @ 150: Nebraska’s Landmark Buildings”, “Forts of the Northern Plains”, “The Great Plains Guide to Custer” and “The Great Plains Guide to Buffalo Bill”.
