I grew up going to minor league baseball games in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We lived about an hour from the stadium, but my parents would buy a mini-season ticket package each year, and we’d go about six times a summer to watch the Midwest League’s Fort Wayne Wizards take on teams from South Bend, Beloit, Lansing, and more.
It was fun! I loved baseball, and I loved the idea that the players we were watching might become major leaguers. The Wizards were a Twins affiliate before they became a Padres affiliate, and they also played the Cubs affiliate regularly, so I was invested. In 2001 the Padres themselves once played an exhibition game in Fort Wayne, which my parents took me out of school early to see.
I remember Jack Cassell started for the Wizards; Cassell eventually pitched 53 unremarkable big league innings, but what I remember most was when he struck out Bubba Trammell. I don’t remember it because of the strikeout, but because Trammell stayed in the game for a second plate appearance, when the other major leaguers had all exited after one time through, just to get another chance at Cassell. And when he faced him a second time, he hit a home run to left that cleared the tall road-protecting netting that sat behind the left field fence.
Often, our ticket package purchases were planned around which entertainment would be happening for different games. My brother and sister were younger than me, and that was a selling point for keeping my brother entertained. (My sister just brought books.) Most packages got a least one or two nights of fireworks, of course, but more interesting were the Zooperstars, Jake the Diamond Dog, and other traveling entertainers who help make minor league baseball what it is.
One of those was Myron Noodleman, whose act you might have caught sometime; essentially a clown version of The Simpsons Professor Frink, with a tux and a slicked back haircut, Noodleman would do the typical on-field dancing and skits you’re likely expecting; I was partial to his “third-base coach giving signs” version of dueling banjos, but he’d also venture throughout the crowd, hitting just about every section throughout each game, to interact in a more up-close fashion. Kids seemed to like him, and he was certainly committed to his craft.
So when I saw the general manager of the Fort Wayne Tincaps (the team changed their name from the Wizards when they moved to a new downtown stadium) tweet this out, I was dismayed:
https://twitter.com/minorleaguenutt/status/923699299610894337
Rick Hader, the man behind the lovable sports entertainer known by millions as Myron Noodleman, is in a very difficult fight with a rare form of cancer that is being very destructive. After initial surgery and treatment, he is now in great danger of losing one eye while still battling the presence of the cancer. This has kept him from performing all last baseball season and keeping him from his other job as a high school teacher.
I learned a few things reading that, and in my subsequent research. First, that his real name is Rick Hader, and that he is in fact actor/comedian Bill Hader’s uncle. Hader’s career as a high school teacher makes sense; it’s a good career for someone who also wants to spend summers traveling and performing at baseball stadiums. And what he’s going through sounds awful.
I don’t know him personally, of course, but it’s impossible for me to think of growing up without thinking of going to minor league baseball games, and it’s impossible to think of those games without thinking of the people like Hader who helped make them memorable. It’s just sad to think of someone who seemed to enjoy making other people happy going through such a nasty battle with cancer.
This just about broke me, actually, which is weird but also a sign of just how formative and deep some sports memories run:
If you want to donate, you can do so here. Hopefully Hader makes as full a recovery as possible.
