Slammin' in Joliet

From the Jan. 13, 2011, Chicago Tribune "The Verdict is On: Joliet Slammers" by Mary Owen.

The next time you're driving Route 66, or the Lincoln Highway, or US-52, or the Grand Army of the Republic Highway US-6 in Illinois during the summer, you are whole-heartedly welcomed to take in a minor league game at Silver Cross Field and see the Joliet Slammers.

It is a nod to both hitting grand slam homers and getting locked up in the ol' Hoosegaw, the infamous Joliet Correctional Center, a perfect fit.

The new owners, who took over for the bankrupt Joliet Jackhammers, Steel City baseball, picked the name from the submissions of some 1000 people. The most popular was the Joliet Jailbirds, but the new owners decided against it.

The Joliet Corectional Center was known as the nation's toughest prisons where two inmates were squeezed into 4-foot-wide cells, tuberculosis was not uncommon and slop buckets served the purpose until indoor plumbing arrived in the 1940s.

The city is in the process of turning part of the facility into a museum and a public park.

Here's hoping that they will keep the old muffler man standing out in the outfield.

Carrying On a Route 66 Tradition. Go You Slammers. --RoadDog