Dave Hoekstra's Very Own Website

Jerry Ramig as seen on his press pass.


Grass roots marketing is one of the joys of making independent art, whether it is books, music or paintings. That’s how I found myself across the street from Alliant Energy Field in Clinton, Ia., which hosted last week’s 45th annual Midwest League All-Star Game. I was signing copies of my new book “Cougars and Snappers and Loons (Oh My!)--A Midwest League Field Guide.”
It was 97 degrees when the session began at 4 p.m.
I sat at a table with my publisher George Rawlinson. He wore a leather biker’s cap and assumed the role of carnival barker in trying to get sluggish fans to come to our booth. There was no cover from the sun. We were positioned between the loud Union Pacific railroad tracks and the quiet Mississippi River. Behind us, lumberjack impersonators were at work recalling the days when Clinton was the “sawmill capital of America.” The Clinton entry in the Midwest League is the LumberKings.
I met all sorts of people in Clinton (pop. 30,000).
One woman gave me a sheet of baseball limericks she had composed. Another woman was from Cuba, via Miami, Chicago and Clinton. She bought a book and left, electing not to stay for the game. Perhaps the most wonderful character I met was long time Clinton Herald sportswriter Jerry Ramig. He looked like an elder Bob Hope on the road to somewhere. He was extremely dressed up considering the heat. Ramig wore a white sport jacket and used a cane to navigate his way through the adjacent field that was the site of the pre-game “fun fest.”
Ramig was going to take in the game, and even though he has been writing for the Herald since 1953 he complained about the placement of one of his baseball stories on page four of the sports section. Sportswriters never change.
Ramig spared no words in talking about his bowling column which was ironic because I had just mentioned to my Chicago Sun-Times colleague Mark Konkol that one way to increase readership is to bring back a regular bowling column in our working class newspaper. Konkol would cover South Side bowling alleys and I would take care of the North Side. We need help with the West Side.
I later learned Ramig was inducted into the Iowa State Bowling Hall of Fame. And for 17 years he hosted a local bowling radio show called “Sparetime.” I love that title.
Ramig was playful with this young pup. He hovered around our booth feigning apathy about my 240-page tome to the backroads of baseball. He first left without buying a copy but later returned with a $20 bill and a grandfatherly smile. Ramig enjoyed being in the spotlight as did the rest of Clinton. The all-star game brought in a roughly $1.5 milllion economic impact to the crippled Clinton economy.
The game itself was rich with memories. I cut out of the book signing session to catch future major leaguers like Peoria Chiefs (Chicago Cubs affiliate) third baseman Josh Vitters (who went 0 for 3) and Chiefs first baseman Rebel Ridling (I love that name) who won the previous night’s Home Run Derby by knocking out 12 dingers. He beat out Milwaukee Brewers 2008 first-round pick Brett Lawrie, who had 5 taters. Lawrie, who plays for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers near Appleton, is the highest ever draft pick out of Canada.
But my favorite click to pick was Dee Gordon, the starting shorstop for the East All-Stars. Gordon plays for the Great Lakes Loons, the Los Angeles Dodgers affiliate in the Midwest League. Gordon went 1 for 2 in the game and stole a base. At the all-star break he led the league with 40 stolen bases in 49 attempts. He also led the league in triples with 8.
Gordon is really fast and hustles all over the place. Even in the all-star game---generally a laid-back affair-- Gordon sped out to center field on a long pop fly and darted to his left and right while playing deep in the hole. He has superb reaction considering this is his first full professional season. Last spring Gordon, 21, attended Seminole Community College in Florida where he did not play baseball. He finished the summer at short season Ogden after the Dodgers drafted him fourth in 2008.
A 5’11, 150-pound left-handed hitter, Gordon is the son of former Cubs reliever Tom “Flash” Gordon. Ironically, his father played in the 1988 Midwest League All-Star Game in Clinton. Flash played for Appleton, then a Kansas City Royals affiliate.
A flash, a strike and then you’re home. The road trip to Clinton was supposed to be about selling some books and catching a glimpse of the future. But the gentle people of Clinton turned out to provide the moments I will most remember.

How did this guy make it to 2009?
In a 1988 interview the master of the soul music cover told me he listens to nearly 500 songs before making his selections. Besides this ditty here Cocker has re-popularized Randy Newman's "You Can Leave Your Hat On," "You Are So Beautiful," (co-written by the late Billy Preston) and the Box Top's "The Letter," among others.
Cocker, now, 65, said there is no guaranteed method for knowing a song is right for him.
"Otherwise we'd all have hits," he growled back in '88. "I go by lyrics that I like and songs that have a hook that are just a bit different. I have to do things I like to sing."

This news was just handed off to me:
John Joseph Houghtaling died June 17 at his home in Fort Pierce, Fla. He was 92. Houghtaling was the dude who invented the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed" mostly used in roadside motels and places like Las Vegas and Reno, Nev. Burned out travelers would deposit a quarter into a machine mounted on the bed and get 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease" in return.
I bet Houghtaling is going to have some great pallbearers.
I used the Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed once, in a motel room outside of Gallup, N.M. The device was effective for a sore back after a long day's drive, but it was noisy. There should be rock band named Magic Fingers.
Magic Fingers had a pop culture rebirth in 1975 when Steve Goodman name dropped the device in his ballad "This Hotel Room." Goodman sang, "They got a room service menu for food and drink/A porcelain throne and an aluminum sink/Two big pillows to rest my head/A Magic Fingers and a king-size bed/Put in a quarter/Turn out the light/Magic Fingers makes ya feel alright."
Jimmy Buffett popularized "This Hotel Room" and later Fox News' Brit Hume sang the Magic Fingers lyric to former President George W. Bush and his father in a January interview when they talked about a vibrating chair in the Oval Office.
On Friday Associated Press reported that at its peak, there were about 175 Magic Fingers franchise dealers across America and the gadgets collected betweem $6,000 and $7,000 a month in quarters.

Welcome to my latest book that mixes travel with the innocent beauty of Midwest League baseball. "Cougars and Snappers and Loons, Oh My! (A Midwest League Field Guide) is available through www.cantmisspress.com.
Enjoy.