Famous Ball Players from Antwerp

Down through the years a number of good ball players have grown up in the Antwerp area. Wayne Fleck was a good left handed pitcher. He excelled when he pitched for the University of Miami. He made the college “Who’s Who” while he was there. He also had a number of interviews with the Chicago White Sox. Wayne pitched a lot for The City Light in Ft. Wayne. That was a very good Semi-Pro team.
Don Lichty was also a fine ball pitcher. He was asked once to sub for Chet Louck of the Detroit Tigers. In 1944, Chet played in the World Series. For many years Don pitched for the Fort Wayne G.E. Club, which was another Semi-Pro team.

Because Antwerp had too many for one team, Carl Billman and Bob Stumpy organized a team sponsored by the Chair Factory and they were called A.F.B. representing Antwerp Furniture and Bedding.

Schilb’s team played on Sunday nights. Max Lichty and Jim Jordan was the battery for this team. It included, Dan Anderson, Rex Billman, Homer Hargraves, Jr., Rex Gloor, Dutch Kauser, Jack Adcock, Eddie Shuherk and some others.
Bob Johnson and his father, Dale, operated the Pure Oil station uptown at the corner of what is now the Pop & Brew. He was a good pitcher for the A.F.B. Team. These teams were about equal in ability. They played each other pretty regularly as well as out of town teams. One fall they played a sort of “World Series” between the two teams. The stands were packed when those teams met.

On the Fourth of July these teams went together and would bring in a big name team such as Napoleon’s Seven Up, or Diehl’s from Defiance or Zollner’s B team. There would be a good fireworks display after the game. This was done for a few years but later on fireworks got to expensive and they were dropped.

The A.F. B. team with Bob Johnson also had Budd Lichty, who was another good pitcher and Max Billman and a lot of young fellows about that same age. They invited a black team down from Ft. Wayne. With them they had Johnnie Bright, one the best athletes ever to come out of Ft. Wayne. He also starred in football and won a scholarship to Drake University. Johnnie had a hit off of Bob Johnson, and as he rounded the bases their third base coach walked over to Bob and said, “don’t let it bother you, ‘Pitch’, he does that to everyone”, and he did. They beat A.F.B. that day, but everybody had a good time, even the people in the stands.

On Sunday night, some people would drive their cars over to the ball park and park them down each base line. They would do that in the afternoon and then at night they would sit in their cars and watch the game in comfort. When a good play was made some would blow the car horns. At all these games the coffee cans were passed even to these cars and people would donate what they could. This and the profit from the concession stand paid for the light bill, repair work, fireworks and the other expenses that came up. The town itself never put any money in the ball park, because they didn’t have any. The Antwerp people, over the years, have really backed the ball clubs and we have such a fine ball park because of it.