In recent years, Major League Baseball has held games in some very unusual places including a corn field and a race track.
The Minor League Joliet Slammers in the Frontier League will start their season in the most unusual spot yet…a prison!
“The Big House Ballgame” is set for an April 30 at the Old Joliet Prison. There is no word as to who the Slammers will face in the game.
Sporting games played by prison inmates is nothing new, inmates have been playing baseball in the yard for 88 years.
And unusual events is nothing new for the Veeck family and Bill Murray owned team. Last season they dropped 2,600 hot dogs from a helicopter on a sellout crowd.
Part owner Night Train Veeck noted via press release, “The Big House Ballgame is exactly the kind of big idea event that gets us fired up as a team. We love being a part of these special moments that bring people together, surprise them a little, and give them a memory they’ll be talking about for a long time.”
More than an exhibition game to start the season, “The Big House Ballgame is the official kickoff for the Route 66 centennial celebration. Route 66 is the historic highway that runs from Chicago to Los Angeles – and the subject of a song by the same name.
According to the Joliet Slammers, the prison warden introduced baseball to the inmates in 1914 to improve morale. Inmates played baseball in the prison yard until the facility closed in 2002.
The Old Joliet Prison was made famous in the “Blues Brothers” film when “Joliet” Jake Blues (John Belushi) was paroled at the beginning of the film.
Leopold and Loeb, Baby Face Nelson, Sam Giancana, and John Wayne Gacy also called the prison “home” for a time.
There is a spot on the Slammers’ website (The Big House Ballgame – Joliet Slammers Pro Baseball) where fans can sign up for a chance to get tickets to the game.