Nokomis prepares for baseball season with chili warmup

NOKOMIS — With the 2024 MLB season closely approaching, the Bottomley-Ruffing-Schalk Baseball Museum (BRS Museum) in Nokomis held its annual Chili Warm-Up event on Saturday, March 23 at the museum.

Earlier in the morning before the event, radio station WSMI AM-FM out of Litchfield was present to broadcast its Sports Saturday program live from the museum. WSMI news director Shawn Balint and Sports Saturday host Tim Mize were present for the entirety of the program. During the program, they interviewed biographer Kent Krause, who released a biography about one of the namesakes of the museum, “Sunny” Jim Bottomley.

An archive of the WSMI Sports Saturday broadcast is below:

During the event, board members of the museum dished out bowls of chili and side dishes while discussing the upcoming season with those in attendance.

The museum sold entries for the museum’s daily calendar drawing fundraiser as well as its home run contest.

Krause was also on hand to sign copies of his Bottomley biography, Sunny Jim Bottomley: A Biography of a Hall of Fame First Baseman. The book was published last summer.

Also in attendance was 2019 Hall of Fame inductee Dave Kane, a long-time sportswriter who covered many Nokomis Redskins athletic competitions, including the back-to-back championship campaigns of the Lady Redskins basketball team in 1998 and 1999.

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Jake Leonard, Executive Editor-In-Chief

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Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.

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