{"id":96397,"date":"2021-05-28T14:21:55","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T19:21:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=96397"},"modified":"2021-05-28T14:22:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T19:22:39","slug":"baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball is more than a game to these Cedar Rapids Kernels superfans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Mack Liederman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa \u2014 It\u2019s routine. They attend the church of baseball \u2014 almost religiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cMissed a game?\u201d said Joan Reinberg with a chuckle as she leaned back in her usual seat on the main concourse at Veterans Memorial Stadium. \u201cI don\u2019t think I have in the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took a pandemic to keep Reinberg, 84, away from her beloved Cedar Rapids Kernels. She attended the entirety of the team’s first homestand, which marked the Kernels\u2019 first games since a 610-day hiatus.<\/p>\n

The return of Minor League Baseball means the Kernels\u2019 most committed, tenured fans have not only regained their team, but also a way of life. Despite no games since 2019, more than 95% of season ticket holders retained their seats for the 2021 season, according to Andrea Brommelkamp, the team\u2019s director of tickets and group sales.<\/p>\n

Even without baseball, Brommelkamp and Reinberg stayed in touch during the pandemic, checking in over the phone, indulging in the occasional town gossip.<\/p>\n

The team community holds \u201ca special connection\u201d for Reinberg. In the 1950s, her uncle Guy \u201cBud” Curran introduced the then-20-something Reinberg to the team. After he died in 2007, Curran\u2019s regular seat became Reinberg\u2019s regular seat. Right there on the main concourse, above the rest of the fans, just a little bit down the first-base line.<\/p>\n

The ballpark, Reinberg said, brings her closer to her relatives. Baseball always has been about family. Curran worked as the team\u2019s groundskeeper. Her late husband, Ernie Reinberg, was a season ticket holder, and her cousin Nancy Cram loved the Kernels too.<\/p>\n

In a memorial before first pitch on May 5, Cram was honored alongside six other superfans who died before the team could return to play.<\/p>\n

Reinberg wants the family pastime to live on. A love for the game is a gift of inheritance. With the Kernels back, she\u2019s excited to bring her grandkids to games. Soon, her great-grandkids will come too.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, they will be fans,\u201d Reinberg said. \u201cThat\u2019s right, it\u2019s a family. The guys up there, I know all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guys up there, Jim West and Tom Kelly, shared a fist-bump before settling into their usual seats on the concourse, a little up and to the left of Reinberg. It\u2019s a straight shot above home plate. West watched closely as a Peoria Chiefs left fielder laid out for a diving catch.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll see plays here like that, that are just outstanding,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s just good baseball. It really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asking the duo why they love the game is a softball question. The answer is easy: They\u2019re bona fide baseball buffs.<\/p>\n

West has been attending Minor League Baseball since the late \u201950s, when his dad took him to Midwest League games in his hometown of Dubuque. For 15 years, he has been going to see the Kernels, and now he\u2019s back for more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like there was no summer,\u201d West said of his baseball-free free time last year. \u201cTo be in the stadium, to see everybody again, this is a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In their seats, West and Kelly swapped stories and reminisced on players as far back as 30, 40 years ago. For them, part of the joy is in the hunt, spotting the next great talent before he reaches the major league.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nobody better than Mike Trout when he was here 11 years ago,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had Byron Buxton too,\u201d chimed in West with pride.<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s memories of the Kernels go back to the early \u201960s, when the team was still running through a gamut of nicknames: the Braves, the Giants, the Astros, the Reds.<\/p>\n

During the pandemic, he tried to substitute the Kernels with his grandkid\u2019s baseball games, but even they were limiting attendance at two seats per player. The return of the Kernels allowed Kelly to enjoy his more typical diet of baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been all over the Midwest watching the Kernels play,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

As the president of the Kernels booster club, Kelly used to organize field trips to road games in Waterloo, Dubuque, Clinton and Burlington. With MLB\u2019s restructuring of Minor League Baseball during the pandemic, only the Quad Cities and Cedar Rapids teams remain within driving distance.<\/p>\n

But that won\u2019t stop Kelly and West from venturing out for some bonus baseball anyway. They just can\u2019t get enough of the Kernels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think most of the people that come here, they\u2019re not like us,\u201d West said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be here all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mack Liederman is a graduate student in the sports specialization master\u2019s program at Northwestern\u2019s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Twelve students were in Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Des Moines and South Bend recently reporting and writing stories on Minor League Baseball.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Mack Liederman Medill Reports CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa \u2014 It\u2019s routine. They attend the church of baseball \u2014 almost religiously. \u201cMissed a game?\u201d said Joan Reinberg with a chuckle as she leaned back in her usual seat on the main concourse at Veterans Memorial Stadium. \u201cI don\u2019t think I have in the last 20 years.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":761,"featured_media":96399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135,31,5092],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iowa-minor-league-baseball-2021","category-sports","category-spring-2021"],"yoast_head":"\nBaseball is more than a game to these Cedar Rapids Kernels superfans - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Baseball is more than a game to these Cedar Rapids Kernels superfans - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Mack Liederman Medill Reports CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa \u2014 It\u2019s routine. They attend the church of baseball \u2014 almost religiously. \u201cMissed a game?\u201d said Joan Reinberg with a chuckle as she leaned back in her usual seat on the main concourse at Veterans Memorial Stadium. \u201cI don\u2019t think I have in the last 20 years.\u201d […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-28T19:21:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-28T19:22:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/05\/Reinberg_UncleSeat.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mackailliederman2021\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"mackailliederman2021\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/\",\"name\":\"Baseball is more than a game to these Cedar Rapids Kernels superfans - Medill Reports Chicago\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/05\/Reinberg_UncleSeat.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-28T19:21:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-28T19:22:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/7514528f0337135a9a8c16c96f3da390\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/baseball-is-more-than-a-game-to-these-cedar-rapids-kernels-superfans\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/05\/Reinberg_UncleSeat.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/05\/Reinberg_UncleSeat.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1707,\"caption\":\"Joan Reinberg has been coming to Kernels games for at least the last 20 years, sitting in the same sear her uncle, Bud Curran, had. 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