Reminiscing with a baseball pro

Fritzie Knoll is the only Minonk native to have played professional baseball. He signed with the Chicago White Sox organization in the 1930's and played second base in the minors for the San Diego Padres. He met his wife Mary while in San Diego, they married in 1941, then he decided to give up baseball knowing that it is no life for a married man. He moved back to Minonk and entered the plumbing business. While in Minonk he played semi-pro ball playing for the Peoria Caterpillars baseball team.

In 1948, tired of the midwestern winters, he and his family moved to San Diego and have been there ever since. They have been married for 63 years and have five children and eleven grandchildren. Knoll's biography will be compiled for this website in the near future.

I was somewhat in awe talking to Fritzie since I remembered that my Uncle Bill VonBehren used to talk about Fritzie. Uncle Bill was a great baseball fan and he was the one who instilled in me the love for the game when I was a kid. I asked Fritzie if he remembered Bill VonBehren. He said, "I sure do. He was a good ball player." He went on to say that Bill's brother Louis (Stu) VonBehren was a really good player also. That immediately triggered memories of being on the farm as a child and using Stu VonBehren's old broken Louisville Slugger wrapped with electrical tape to play ball. I used to go to Uncle Bill's farm and use Stu's bat to hit tennis balls against Uncle Bill's barn. If I hit the barn on the bounce it was an out. If I hit the barn wall on the fly it was a single, hitting the roof was a double, and over the roof was a home run. I would keep score inning by inning to see how many runs I could get. Occasionally, I would hit a foul ball that would land in the cow lot next to the barn. More than once I would have to pick the ball out of a fresh cow patty. Then I would take the ball to the water tank and wash it off and continue batting.

Fred "Fritzie" Knoll

Knowing that I was interviewing a veritable warehouse of history, I anxiously tried to come up with questions that I had never been able to ask anyone before. I asked Fritzie what the old Schlitz Opera House was like since I have never seen any pictures of the inside. The Minonk landmark burned down in 1934 and was where the famous Minonk Fan's basketball team played in the 1920's. The building was located at the site of Young's Garage building at Sixth and Chestnut. He said that there were no seats on the gymnasium floor which was located on the second floor. There was a balcony that ran along the north and south sides of the court in which a row of seats was arranged. People without a seat would stand behind the seats. The west end of the court had a stage containing bleachers which seated the majority of the spectators. The scoreboard was located at the east end of the court. Fritzie said that he didn't remember much about locker rooms since the building was originally built for operas and stage plays rather than for sporting events.

Fritzie said that there was a baseball diamond immediately to the north of the Schlitz Opera House which would place it about where the current fire station is located on Chestnut Street.

I asked if he remembered when Minonk resident Fred "Wiggy" Eihausen used to bring Ronald Reagan back to Minonk for the weekend. Wiggy and Reagan were college roommates at Eureka College back in the early 1930's. Fritzie said he remembered Reagan really well and used to play ball with them at Eureka. Then he went on to say that, "We used to call Reagan "Stupid Ronny" because all he wanted to do was become a radio announcer. Can you imagine that?" he said. "We used to call him Stupid Ronny and then he becomes President of the United States. Shows how much we knew." Evidently, becoming a radio announcer in the 1930's was equivalent to becoming a carnival barker.

Fritzie wanted to know if I knew of anyone else from the area who played professional baseball. I didn't know of any. If anyone knows of a professional ball player from this area, I would appreciate hearing from you. Whether or not there is another professional ball player from this area, I am sure they will not have had a more interesting life than Fritzie Knoll.