My friend Mike Starcevic is an usher at the Peoria Chiefs games and knows the ballpark inside and out! He invited me to join him at last night’s game and I accepted that invitation. Of course photos were taken and if you keep scrolling you can see our evening at Dozer Park where the Peoria Chiefs did baseball battle with the Beloit Snappers!
Here we are at Dozer Park and it’s a perfect summer evening for a baseball game. As soon as I walked In I met Mike and he was hanging out with the Peoria Chiefs mascot, Homer! I also met this trio who were welcoming people into the ballpark. As you can see the field is being prepared for the game, so we walked down to...
The beer stand! They have three dollar bottles of beer here and you can see Mike choosing one and this lovely lady is pouring a Budweiser for me! A great start for the evening!
There’s Mike with his boss out here, Michael. In addition to the beer specials on Thursday night’s here, they have three dollar brats! So I got one and headed over to the condiment wagon for some onions and mustard. It was delicious! I’m not a big baseball fan, but I still love hanging out here at Dozer Park. It’s fun to watch all of the people and it’s always a great night out in downtown Peoria!
There’s a familiar face here at Dozer Park, it’s Rocky Vonachen, the President of the Peoria Chiefs. Rocky and I went to high school together and it was fun to catch up and chat. That’s Rocky with the GM of the Chiefs, Jason Mott. I had to coax that pretty woman into letting me take her photo, she was a little camera shy, but I told her that since she’s filming the game, she should pose for the MBIP Camera and she did! The last photo is veteran Peoria news anchor, Tom McIntyre. Tom’s retired now but he and Bob Larson teamed up recently for a fun series last May on WMBD. Tom said they’re going to be doing it again in September so stay tuned for that! Tom told me he still has the POP issue with the history of Peoria TV written by Bob Gordon. I always love hearing that people still have old issues of POP laying around!
There’s the statue of Rocky’s dad, Pete Vonachen. And proving that Mike does indeed know everyone at the ballpark, there he is with Gary, who’s a big baseball fan and was a baseball star when he was in high school. I should also note that Mike, Gary and myself all worked at Fleming Potter. We need to call Artie Fowler for the next time we get together! Okay, everyone’s standing for the national anthem and now it’s time to play ball!
As the game got going, we walked down to the Budweiser tent and met Jessica, Maeve and Abby, who were looking very pretty in their Budweiser clothes! They were giving out free Bud swag and there was also Bud bag games going on. Cheers!
I walked down to get some close-up shots of the field and the Peoria Chiefs dugout. As you can see, they had a good crowd watching the game last night!
There’s Jessica and the Bud crew circling the field and handing out Budweiser swag!
This was really a cool surprise, I ran into my old friend Tim Southey at the game and he let me enter the exclusive Southey Suite at Dozer Park! I had no idea they had this suite and it’s really nice and air-conditioned too! And check it out, Homer is hanging out here too! That’s Ande on the left and Tim and his wife Kay in the center. It was great to see all of the Southey’s and Tim and Kay and I reminisced about Carbondale, my brother Jim, Kevin Southey’s hyperactive jaw and a Nazi that we all knew! Good times!
There’s some cool artifacts on the walls of the Southey Suite including vintage baseball photos and autographed bats.
And what’s really nice is this outside deck that has a spectacular view of Dozer Park! That’s another Southey there in the red shirt (I didn’t get his first name, I really should be more professional and start writing this stuff down...naaaah) and he tool a photo of us out on the deck. From left, Tim, Kay, Yours Fooly, Ande and Dave! Great to see all of the Southey’s and thanks for letting me hang out in the exclusive Southey Suite at Dozer Park! And now, back to the cheap seats!
On the way back down to find Mike, I met Kelly and it turns out she’s Mike’s cousin! So of course we have to cue this up! And speaking of Mike...
There he is with Bill, I swear Mike knows everyone in here! As you can see the sun has gone down and the Chiefs are in the lead, 4-0! Looks like it’s going to be a victorious night for them!
Check this out, Mike got me an official Peoria Chiefs baseball! That’s me holding it with Bob, yet another friend of Mike’s out here! What a perfect ending to a great night out at Dozer Park! Thanks to Mike for the baseball and for hanging out and special thanks to the Southey family for allowing me to visit them in the exclusive Southey Suite at Dozer Park, it was a blast! We’ll see you all tomorrow!
--------------
730 SW Jefferson Avenue Peoria
309-680-4000
--------------
Related Posts: Tuesday Night @ Dozer Park and A Peoria Chiefs Game and The Drugs Delaney CD Release Party.