Hog Palace News

Hog Palace Origins

The Barnstormer came about as a by-product of the Hale-Bopp comet and the Heaven's Gate cult members that were left behind. Whoa, wrong story. My story, I was born a poor black child son of a sharecropper. Crap! Wrong story again. The origin of the Barnstormer team is one of myth and legend. Here is a story I have passed on to my family so I'll pass it along to all of you. Legend has it, the five original members of the Stormer were sitting around at bowling one night and started chatting about the upcoming softball season. One of them suggested that why don't they all start their own team? So a call was made and POW! The team you know today as the funnest show on dirt was born.

O.K. So the start wasn't that exciting or legendary, but it still happened. David, Randy, Slurvy, Brent and Donnie, were all talking at bowling, and Brent wondered how come none of us play softball together. We all said in a sophisticated manner, "I dunno?" Brent made a call to Fargo slowpitch, got us into the NDSU North League and promptly gaffed off all managerial duties to Donnie, where he still has them today.

So that is the birth, now I'll go over the growth of the team. Five years ago we amassed quite a crew together for our first season. It was quite the group. The kind of group that if you took a team photo, it would be followed up with "Turn to the right," for another picture. The theme for the team has kind of always been family. And through the years we have had a number of brothers play together on the field. Donnie, David and Jason are all brothers. Brent and Slurvy are our surrogate brothers from back in the day. First baseman Sabe and shortstop Dammon are identical twins. They brought along Doug, who is their best friend from Rugby. Randy the Anvil brought his brother Barry along a few years later to play with us. Uncle Steve, who is gone but never forgotten, is Slurvy's uncle. So it is a family tree with not a whole lot of forks in the tree. In our first year we also brought Chaz, who is still on the team today, Jason D., who is somewhere out there, John Lamb and Jeremy Schaur. Those are the original players from way back. As I recall, as the memory is awfully clouded with malted hops, we finished our inaugural season as a .500 team. Not bad for a bunch of alcoholics throwing a ball at each other and swinging aluminum.

Over the years, we have seen a number of new faces come and go. Names such as Captian Ron, Dan the welch, Doug, Jason D., Uncle Steve, John Lamb, BLUE, Hubie the beer mooch, Snake, David, Jeremy, Jay Murdoff, Sugar Shane and Avolt are just some of the many people who haved donned the stone grey. Some can easily be forgotten, most can never be replaced. But somehow we find the inner strength each year to carry along.

But over the years we have managed to keep the core of the clowns together. Donnie, Miffy, Brent, Anvil, Sabe, Dammon, Chaz and Slurvy always come back to wear the stone grey. And we have been blessed with a few other die hards who show up week in and week out to play ball. People like Tombo, Jeff, Cheeseburger, E.T., Mike and Barry have been welcomed additions because of their talent, but more so for their potential for humor. Everyone on this team is hilarious and we wouldn't want it any other way.

So may our legs be swift, our throws be crisp and our balls be plentiful. So to the team and fans of the Barnstormer, I say, PLAY BALL!