Joyce Wilkerson has been going to as many Clinton Lumber Kings games as she can since the early 1990’s. She keeps coming back because she loves the stadium, the fans and the team. “There’s no time in baseball; I love that.”
Wilkerson has her own unique cheering style, a collection of more than 1,000 signed baseballs and is a fixture at Lumber Kings games. Author Lucas Mann writes about her, and a few other Iowans, his book “Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere.” He calls her "The Collector" because she has so much baseball paraphernalia.
The book chronicles the time he spent with the team and the fans during the 2010 season. Mann says when he set out to write the book, he tried getting in touch with the Cedar Rapids Kernels but that didn’t really work out.
“Well, Cedar Rapids didn’t want me hanging around, which makes perfect sense. When I went to Clinton, I loved the old school stadium right there on the Mississippi. It’s so well kept… I was lucky enough to be welcomed into what fans of the team call the ‘baseball family.’”
This hour on Talk of Iowa, Charity Nebbe talks with Mann about his book. Then, Wilkerson tells us about her baseball collection and Brad Seward, who has been the public address announcer since he was 17, also joins the conversation.
This show originally aired June 17, 2014.
