Submitted
As part of the 150th Anniversary Celebration of Rush County, there will be a vintage baseball game on October 12, 2024 in La Crosse. The Historic Fort Hays Post Nine team will be traveling to La Crosse to take on the Next Generation Loretto Bluejays. The game will be played following the rules of 1869.
The Fort Hays Post Nine is a vintage baseball team of Historic Fort Hays. The club formed in 2017 and suits up with vintage style uniforms and equipment following the rules of 1869. The team has played games with vintage teams from Wichita, Topeka and Denver as well as the Hays Larks Alumni and the Hays City 9.
The Next Generation Loretto Bluejays team is composed of residents of Rush County including descendants of players’ families from the original Loretto Bluejays, an early 20th-century semi-professional baseball team from the town of Loretto in northeastern Rush County. In the 1920s, the team was simply known as the “Urban Team” because most of the team were descendants of the Urban family, one of the founding families of the Volga-German settlement. Later, the team became known as the Loretto Bluejays and played throughout the state of Kansas. The team won numerous championships and defeated teams from much larger communities including Fort Hays State Normal School (Fort Hays State University.)
Loretto was founded in 1912 as a breakaway settlement from the town of Pfeifer. Members of Holy Cross Church in Pfeifer, who lived just over the line in Rush County, petitioned the diocese to start their own church, St. Mary Help of Christians, four and one-half miles south of Pfeifer. Adam S. Urban and Stephen S. Urban each donated five acres of land for the townsite; Martin Urban gave one acre for a cemetery; and Joseph Urban donated land for a church, parsonage, and school. From this, the town of Illinois, renamed Loretto a year later, was born.
By the late 1950s, Loretto became well known for being the smallest community in the state to have a lighted baseball field. With a population of only around 40, attendance at local games could reach into the hundreds. As a result, Loretto was awarded district tournaments.
One of the most famous people to play for the Loretto team was Romanus “Monty” Basgall. Monty Basgall, a Bison High School graduate, went on to become a professional baseball player, manager, and scout. He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1948-49 and 1951. After working in the Pirates organization in the 1950s, he moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers as a scout, minor league infield instructor, and eventually Double-A manager. He then became a coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers for 14 seasons from 1973 to 1986. Basgall helped lead the Dodgers to win the 1981 World Series.
This will be the first time a team has worn a Loretto Uniform in over 50 years. The game will be held Saturday, October 12, at the Rush County Fairgrounds Field on east Hwy 4 in La Crosse. The game will start at 1:00pm and there is no admission charge. Vintage concessions will also be available.
The game is sponsored by the Rush County Sesquicentennial, “The 150-Year Rush,” a year-long celebration of events commemorating the founding of Rush County on December 5, 1874. For more information visit rushcounty.org/celebrate150 or contact Rush County Economic Development at 785-222-2808.