courtesy August Publications
Author Tom Alesia and the cover for "Baseball Like It Oughta Be."
Author Tom Alesia and the cover for "Baseball Like It Oughta Be."
On June 2, 2001, the Madison Mallards — a new team in the burgeoning collegiate summer baseball Northwoods League — played its first game at Warner Park, which soon would become known as the “Duck Pond.” The scrappy franchise went on to redefine summer baseball while smashing national attendance records and propelling 25 players to major league teams.
A quarter-century later, almost to the date, the Mallards will host a free 25th anniversary celebration May 19 at the Duck Pond from 4-7 p.m. The event will feature games for kids in the outfield, mascot appearances, free hot dogs and soda, a cash bar and — rare for a summer collegiate baseball team — the launch of a book about the Mallards’ colorful history.
Baseball Like It Oughta Be: How A Shoe Salesman’s Madison Mallards and His Renegade Staff Ignited a Summer Collegiate Baseball Revolution (August Publications) by longtime Madison journalist Tom Alesia contains almost 200 pages chronicling the team’s humble beginnings, its revitalization of the city’s northeast side ballpark, its on-field success and its continual focus on community. The book also explores the Mallards’ ability to attract future big-leaguers like Pete Alonso and Derek Fisher, as well as how the team has drawn an average of more than 6,000 fans per game every season but four since 2006.
“It’s not a coffee-table book. Instead, it follows the years before their first game, the promotions and — most definitely — the players. I really hope its appeal goes beyond baseball fans, because it has a lot of fun stories,” says Alesia, who covered arts and entertainment for The Capital Times from 1993 to 1998 and then the Wisconsin State Journal from 1998 to 2010. In more recent years, he’s been an AmeriCorps worker at Black Hawk Middle School and a full-time literacy assistant at Indian Mound Middle School; Alesia is now a freelance writer, and this is his fourth book — and the second one about baseball.
In August 2023, Alesia approached Mallards owner Steve Schmitt (also owner of The Shoe Box in Black Earth and the “shoe salesman” in the book’s subtitle) and team president Vern Stenman (who initially viewed Madison as a stepping stone when he joined the Mallards in 2001 at age 23). Alesia told them he’d like to write a “deep-dive, fun book” about the team’s 25 years in a city and ballpark that previously could not keep a baseball team for more than a decade. One club, the Mad Hatters, a Class A minor-league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, lasted only a single season.
“A bit to my surprise, both of them said ‘yes,’” Alesia says.
What followed were more than 18 months of countless interviews Alesia conducted individually with Schmitt and Stenman in places as diverse as the Duck Pond, area restaurants, and Schmitt’s Sports Treasures Plus memorabilia store in Stoughton.
“They were open, they were honest, they talked about good times and bad times, good decisions and bad decisions,” Alesia says. “I realized right off the bat that I needed to get their memories going. After that, it turns out they have very vivid recollections.”
All told, Alesia, 59, interviewed about three dozen people, including many former players. He admits initially he was skeptical of another baseball team in Madison when the Mallards arrived. But the team gradually won him over, thanks largely to Schmitt’s and Stenman’s savvy and tireless marketing.
“Steve and Vern and their staff love a good promotion, and they come up with a lot of them,” Alesia says. “But they also want to win more than most of the fans. Most of the fans who go want to have a good time, and the Mallards are more than ready to provide that.”
Baseball Like It Oughta Be (which also was the Mallards’ slogan for a decade) is available for preorder at online bookstores and MallardsBaseball.com, and it will be for sale at Madison-area bookstores beginning May 20.
