Diamond in the Sandhills: In baseball’s golden age, an elite ballpark drew MLB clubs to Nebraska

Gene Leahy didn’t like what he saw. Rushville’s baseball field was one of the finest in Nebraska, thanks to the generosity of two bachelor brother ranchers. But the diamond saw little action. 

So, Leahy — big brother to Frank, Notre Dame’s legendary football coach — convinced the Milwaukee Braves in the mid-1950s to host an annual summer baseball school in this Sandhills town of only 1,200 residents. Teens and young men traveled hundreds of miles to attend.

“It was the thrill of my lifetime to realize that Rushville was to have the school and that our boys, so far out in the sticks, would get big-league tutorage,” Leahy, a local pharmacist-turned insurance agent, told Baseball Digest in 1958.

The baseball school accomplished its goal of breathing new life into the northwest Nebraska ballpark. But when the school ended in 1965, decades of decline followed, sparking the need for another community-minded effort — this time focused on keeping the park in play and preserving its history.

Rushville locals and school participants, now in their 70s and beyond, still remember when boys from throughout the country came to Rushville for three summer days of baseball. They came to develop their skills and get a chance to live a childhood dream. Each year, the Braves promised at least one participant an invitation to their minor league camp the following summer. 

Rushville, for its part, gave these young ballplayers a hero’s welcome. “Everyone was so excited when school ended because that meant baseball was coming,” recalled Connie Hollstein, whose parents helped Leahy run the camp and hosted players in their home. “Our community came together to make it a success. And it was.”

Hollstein, who as a teen helped with registration, remembers overflow crowds each year at Modisett Ball Park for the end-of-school all-star game. With the grandstands full, fans parked their cars and trucks along the park’s perimeter. “When it was baseball school time, we paid attention to baseball,” said Hollstein, who now lives in Fort Worth, Texas. “The whole town did.”

Along with the all-star game, the three-day school featured a parade through town, a coach’s clinic and a banquet with guest speakers that included Frank Leahy and baseball Hall of Famer Paul Waner. 

Dale Hendrickson, now 89 and living in Kimball, remembers participating in all the drills during the 1954 school. But when it came time to audition, instructors limited him to 10 pitches. He had pitched a complete-game shutout the day prior.

After his 10 pitches, Hendrickson was summoned to Leahy’s insurance office, where the Braves offered him a contract. “My parents told me to sign it,” he recalled. “If they hadn’t told me to sign, I wouldn’t have.”

Hendrickson never made it to the majors, but he did play seven seasons in baseball’s minor leagues.

The Kelso brothers traveled from the family ranch in South Dakota to attend — Jesse in 1958, and Jim two years later. 

Jim, a catcher, said the experience helped shape his future as a coach. By his own assessment, he wasn’t much of a prospect. “You might say I was a bullpen catcher for the 30 to 40 pitching prospects at the camp. I went home and I trained other pitchers that became very good pitchers.”

The story behind Modisett Ball Park began when Albert Modisett died in a car crash in 1935 at age 72. In his will, the primary beneficiary of his estimated $300,000 estate was the town of Rushville. Among the projects placed in his will were a community hall, a home for elderly men and a new city park, including a state-of-the-art ballpark. His brother, Mayre Modisett, contributed a similar sum.

Dedicated in 1940, Modisett Ball Park featured substantial grandstands, a grass infield, bright lights and an underground sprinkler system. Baseball Digest described it as “worthy of a professional club.”

By the 1950s, however, the park didn’t see much play. Enter Gene Leahy, who had played football at Creighton University, boxed as a light heavyweight, scouted for the Chicago Cubs and played semi-pro baseball in Chadron. Leahy would not allow Modisett Ball Park to go unused, said his daughter, Jeanie Leahy Knudtson. “It was too special of a place.”

Leahy used his brother Frank’s connection to Fred Miller, the brewery owner who helped bring the Braves to Milwaukee in 1953, to pitch his idea for Rushville to host a tryout school. The pitch landed.

More than 100 boys from throughout the Midwest attended the inaugural 1954 school. Leahy was delighted, Knudtson said. “He was born to play baseball, and he played it. Dad ate and drank baseball.”

The Braves hosted the school from 1954 to 1961, the New York Yankees hosted in 1963 and the Los Angeles Angels hosted in 1965. By then, the schools drew well under 100 participants.

The landscape for baseball tryout schools and camps had changed. Open tryout camps in remote locales were significantly curtailed with the advent of the amateur baseball draft in 1965, said Rod Nelson, a baseball historian. 

With the school gone, Modisett Ball Park slowly declined. It still hosted local teams, but by the turn of the 21st century, the 60-year-old ballpark was showing its age. A conversation between Rushville’s then-mayor, Chris Heiser, and Rushville native and former Omaha World-Herald publisher John Gottschalk resulted in a plan to restore the ballpark. 

The crux of their conversation, Heiser recalled, was: “We can fix it or we can rebuild it. What should we do?” 

Gottschalk retained HDR, the firm that designed what’s now Charles Schwab Field for the College World Series in Omaha, and supported a community fundraising campaign. The restored Modisett Ball Park was rededicated in 2015.

Heiser said Rushville once again had a ballpark worthy of its history. 

Knudtson remembers her father’s quiet disappointment when the school ended. “The Baseball Schools in Rushville were a great thrill to me,” Leahy wrote in his memoir, “giving me a chance to again associate with the great game of baseball, meet some of the finest people on earth, plus some of the greatest stars of the game.” 

“Dad was a strong believer in community spirit,” his daughter said. “Everything he did he did with the belief that it would make Rushville a better place in which to live. I am sure that Dad was disappointed when the Braves made the decision to stop the annual school in Rushville, but he accepted it. Just knowing how many boys’ lives he had touched over the years gave him a sense of accomplishment.”

John Heiser, the former mayor’s father, attended the final camp in 1965 at age 18. “I threw quite a few pitches, after which the pitching coach said, ‘I would sure like to have you come back next year and let’s do this again,’” Heiser recalled. 

There would be no next year, though. “When I watch major league baseball in the summer,” Heiser said, “I wonder if I could have done that.”