As a little kid, it was always fun to go to Wade Stadium and watch the old Duluth Dukes play. It was a long time ago, but refuted by the clarity of the memory, when I watched a tall, lean, professor-like catcher for the Dukes step into the left-handed batter’s box. More graphic is the memory of watching that white baseball disappear into the black sky between the first and second light standards, above the right-field fence.
That’s how I remember Bernie Gerl best. I was too young to completely understand all he went through to return to play baseball, after narrowly surviving that legendary Duluth Dukes bus crash on July 24, 1948.
Bernie doesn’t remember much of it, either. He liked to sit in the aisle on the busrides, as he did on that bright day when manager George Treadwell drove the team bus from Eau Claire to a series at St. Cloud. As they passed through the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities, a truck suddenly veered out of the oncoming lane and into the west-bound lane, hitting the bus in a horribly tragic collision.
Treadwell and four players were killed. Fast work by passers-by rescued the rest. Gerl was the last to be pulled from the burning wreckage. He was burned significantly over much of his body, and he was unconscious in the hospital for several days.
“I woke up in the hospital,” said Gerl, who turns 88 in another week. “My dad had come up to visit me, from Joliet (Ill.), and he was leaning over my bed. I was burned, inside and out, and I couldn’t breathe. I could only say one word at a time, and I said, ‘I’ve...got...to...get...out...of...here...I’m...in...a...slump.’
“There were six of us in that ward, and I was the only one without broken bones. Nobody would tell me anything, but one nurse kept trying to get me to walk to the rest room. I finally made it, and when I looked in the mirror, I was horrified. I had bandages all over me, and my face looked like a breaded pork chop.”
Once 190 pounds, Gerl said he was 120 when he finally got to go home from the hospital. He worked hard, determined to return to the game he loved. He had married his wife, Bernadine, and they had their first of two sons, but two seasons later, in 1950, he got another chance, signing with the St Louis Cardinals to play for their farm team in Montgomery, Ala. But he hit .298, he recalls, but he also knew he couldn’t make enough to support his young family, so he quit. He and his brother opened a bar in Joliet, and baseball became a thing of his past.
“In 1952, we were going to go on a fishing trip to Northern Minnesota,” Gerl said. “We stopped in Duluth, and I went out to the ballpark. I was sitting there, and Ken Blackman (Dukes general manager) came and sat with me. As we talked, he said they needed a catcher, and they had an opportunity to make the playoffs. I turned around and drove the family back home, and came back to Duluth.”
Gerl caught for the Dukes through the rest of the 1952 season, and returned to play in 1953, before retiring for good. It’s an incredible story of determination, and Bernie Gerl, 87 going on 35, doesn’t mind telling about it, or about the priceless memories still rampant from those Northern League days.
He sat behind home plate and watched the Huskies play last Thursday -- the 66th anniversary of the bus crash -- and Friday. They were surrounded by fans young and old, and well-wishers who have heard his incredible story.

Cruelty of Double Elim

The District 8 American Legion baseball tournament may have seemed endless with its double-elimination format, but then suddenly it was over. But not before some outstanding games.
Lakeview defeated Grand Rapids 5-4 in a strategic gem, with coaches on both sides changing pitchers to save innings for the added games to come. Winner Nisswa got past both Lakeview -- 11-10 -- and then Grand Rapids 8-7. That Rapids loss eliminated them. With such close games exhausting their pitching, Lakeview lost 18-5 to Hermantown.
But go back to that Lakeview-Grand Rapids clash. It was tied 4-4 in the last of the ninth, and Chris Olson, who had pitched part of the game for Lakeview, and whose clutch single drove in a run to break a 2-2 tie earlier in the game, rocked the first pitch over the center-fielder’s head for a leadoff double. Elliot Kuberra sacrificed him to third. At that point, Grand Rapids coach Bill Kinnunen made the decision and Rapids intentionally walked the next two hitters to load the bases and set up a potential force play at the plate.
Connor Gunst hit a grounder to shortstop, and the Rapids shortstop made a brilliant play, catching the ball and tagging Nat Shuman going to third, before spinning off and firing to first. It would have been an inning-ending double play, but the throw pulled the Rapids first baseman just a step off the bag, and Olson scored the winning run. Excellent play, high drama, ending in Lakeview’s 5-4 victory.
  There was similar action in the Division II competition, with International Falls winning the title with a 9-3 victory over Two Harbors. Falls had beaten Two Harbors 9-4 earlier in the double-elimination play, then things unfolded quickly, as Ely eliminated Esko 4-2, then Two Harbors eliminated host Ely 5-4 to set up Sunday’s final. But International Falls was too tough and claimed the title.

Mother Nature Provides Late-Summer Sport

It’s our family tradition to be aware of, look for, and appreciate any and all signs of nature at work. We drive past a small part of Lake Superior’s North Shore every day, and we never fail to gaze out to see whether it’s calm or rough, and whether there are boats in view, or birds.
Some friends gave us a rare treat last week when they took us for a casual ride on their pontoon boat out on Fish Lake, north of Duluth.
They had spotted an enormous eagle’s nest in some tall trees on an island out in the lake, and we set out to locate it. The nest looked like it might have three bedrooms, it was that big. It also was at a jaunty angle, which made you wonder if the pair of eagle parents were a little tilted at the time of building, or if the big nest might have gotten slightly dislodged and wound up at a 20-degree list.
Whatever, it still worked, and the pair of bald eagles was well along raising a pair of new chicks. Calling these monsters “chicks” is odd. They both stand tall, almost full size, and only the lack of white feathers on their heads indicates their youthful age. They hadn’t flown yet, when we cruised under their dwelling, waiting with them for one of the parents to show up with a keeper-sized fish in its powerful beak.
There were plenty of other attractions on our cruise, with the occasional heron sailing overhead, and our favorite alternative target -- loons.
There remains nothing quite like being on a remote lake and hearing the warbling call of a loon to its mate. It’s especially neat after sundown, but we weren’t waiting around.
We’re told that the loon population is at high risk this summer, because the huge and hungry outburst of tiny black flies has bothered the loons enough that some have abandoned their nests before their eggs have hatched. It could be a sufficient problem to cut seriously into the new crop of loons this summer.
The fun of seeing a loon on a lake is that they watch you carefully, and if you make them curious or too cautious, they dive deep -- sometimes staying under water for a minute or more, and surfacing 100 yards away.
It was fun and challenging to shoot a few loon photos, because they seem to sense when you’re aiming a camera at them, and dive to camera-shy depths. But we did find a mother loon and its chick, seeming to be teaching the little critter how to navigate and negotiate the lake. We sort of drifted along with that pair, they observing us as closely as we observed them.
Otherwise, most of the wildlife we observed was at Bayfront Festival Park at the first of what we can hope will become annual Howling Wolf concerts. We didn’t watch all of both days, but we saw a lot of performances, and they were top shelf.
On Friday, Big Wu was a high-energy set up act that captivated the crowd. No stranger to regional music scenes, the Big Wu is a group of guys who got together while attending St. Olaf College in Northfield -- similar to Trampled by Turtles, our own UMD-sourced band. Following the Big Wu came the Guess Who, and, aging or not, they played an impressive set by bringing their old songs back to life.
On Saturday, the Bodeans put on an outstanding set, and they might have stolen the show except that Nicholas David came on next and, though his talents had been showcased on the television show The Voice, it seemed to bog down the show for an hour before Brandi Carlisle came on to finish. She was enthusiastic and impressive, and demonstrated the dazzling capabilities of one of the most compelling and unique voices in show business.

Football Takes Over

The UMD football team ran up a 10-2 record and made it to the second round of Division II playoffs last fall, and they did it with several impressive running backs -- but the most impressive was Austin Sikorsky, a junior who gained 1,290 yards and scored 16 touchdowns.
Sikorski was hospitalized with stab wounds to his abdomen after a bar-closing-time incident in downtown Duluth, about 1:55 a.m. Sunday morning, near Lake Avenue and Superior Street. No arrests had been made by Tuesday night.  Sikorski, 22, from Stevens Point, Wis., was named a pre-season D-II All-American as he approaches his senior season. Reports of Sikorski’s condition and recovery remain sketchy.
Less sketchy is the word that Brett Favre will be inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, with his trademark No. 4 retired. It’s only fitting that the Packers and Favre make up their differences. When Favre announced he was retiring, then changed his mind and decided to play again, the Packers were awkward in their handling of the situation and named Aaron Rodgers as No. 1 quarterback.
Favre went on to play for the New York Jets for a season, then retired again, only to unretire in time to lead the Minnesota Vikings to their most successful and exciting season in two decades.
As for the Vikings, Matt Cassell is going to start the Friday exhibition against Oakland (yawn), and running back Adrian Peterson won’t play at all. Win, lose, draw or postpone the “game,” our Teddy Watch will continue before the game ends.