Baseball Documentary Film

By By J.C. Reeves

The Capital-Journal

The city of Rossville — and in particular, Joe Campbell Memorial Stadium, home of the Rossville Rattlers — will take center stage for the upcoming baseball documentary “Town Teams: More than Baseball.”

Mark Honer, the director of the film and executive producer of DHTV Digital, a company he started in 1996 in the Kansas City area, said the documentary is about the teams that played in the early 1900s in rural Kansas.

“I was actually looking into doing a documentary about the El Dorado oil field and the 100-year anniversary of the oil boom down near El Dorado. Obviously, I was looking into doing it and what I had learned, unfortunately, was that somebody had done a damn-fine documentary already about it,” Honer said with a laugh. “So there wasn’t really any need to do that. But in the process of doing my research, I kept coming across these old photos of baseball teams.

“What I learned along the way is that every little small town, and I mean no matter how small it seemed, had a baseball team. I mean it was the entertainment of the time.”

The documentary follows a particular game between two teams from towns that no longer exist near El Dorado — Midian and Oil Hill.

“I grew up near El Dorado and went to grade school at Oil Hill grade school. I always wondered what Oil Hill was. It turns out Oil Hill was a town of around 2,500 people,” Honer said. “Everybody had a team. It was as far as you could go on a Sunday. Basically, these guys were working 60-70 hours a week just about. No matter who they were — on a farm, oil fields or whatever. But on Sunday they just went out and they played for the love of the game, so it kind of got me excited.

Honer, a baseball fan, said he’d never done a documentary on an historic subject before but he was excited about the subject. He said the more he started researching the project, the more he learned about an individual player who went on to play in the majors.

“I don’t have any interest in guys that went on to the majors,” Honer said. “I want to tell the story of the other 98 percent of guys from baseball towns that just played because they loved it. It was pretty dang good and it was pretty dang competitive.”

Midian and Oil Hill had populations of about 2,000 and 2,500 people, respectively. Each year the teams would play what Honer described as “their own little mini-World Series” for the championship of the oil belt.

Many teams during the time period would hire ringers, or professional players, who would help give them an edge. For this particular game, however, there were three or four hired to play.

“One was Casey Stingle, who went on to be a Hall-of-Fame manager with the Yankees,” Honer said. “He was hired by Midian, and a couple of other guys that were significant pro players. Oil Hill hired a guy named (Roy) Saunders to pitch. It was the town teams, but they wanted to win so bad for the seventh game, just the seventh game — it was tied 3-3 — so they brought in these ringers.

“It was a very colorful game. It was 1-0. There was a very controversial play, and we’re going to re-enact some of the scenes from that game.”

Honer began his project by researching photos of games that happened during the time period.

“I went looking for photos to see what’s out there. Are there enough photos to sort of tell this story? And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was one of the few things that they did take pictures of then,” Honer said. “There were tons of pictures of old teams, you know, this year or that year that were posed. But the real treasures are the ones where there were a few photographers out there that were shooting games.”

Most of the work on this project was done throughout the spring. Honer, an Iowa State University graduate, traveled around to different places looking for a place to film before he decided on Rossville.

“I think the stadium was the biggest thing,” said David Streeter, Rossville Rattlers general manager and Mid-Plains League commissioner. “This being an all-wooden ball park lends itself very highly to that era. I think, for him, that was the biggest thing. Just having that authentic look.”

Honer’s vision of this scene, which will be filmed at 1 p.m. Oct. 18, is based on a postcard he came across from the time period. The photo depicts hundreds of fans sitting in the grandstands of the Oil Hill stadium and Model-T cars parked along the sides of the field.

“I need people to show up for the re-enactment, and I want to make it real clear that we’re not going to play a game,” Honer said. “We’re going to shoot scenes. We’re going to shoot some scenes that are composite of what you might find in town baseball that will be sprinkled throughout the film to illustrate things.”

Honer hopes the film will be finished before the next baseball season, and plans to do screenings across the state of Kansas, as well as have the documentary played on various public television stations throughout the state.

Horner said the community of Rossville has been behind him every step of the way.

“This town, I’m telling you, they’re amazing. They’re into it. They’re helping me so much. I don’t really even know anybody over there. They just dig baseball. They’re really into it. They heard about the project and they just said ‘OK, rally the troops.’ ” Horner said. “There’s like three people that are helping me find players, sewing old uniforms for me. I’m trying to get people to show up in period dress and they’re spreading the word around for me. This is a labor of love. You do a project like this because you’re into the subject.”

For another article on this planned documentary,  go to:  http://rossvilleksalumninews.blogspot.com/2015/09/baseball-film-shoot-in-rossville.html