FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 27, 2011
Chaplain Publishing
Contact: Christi Brooks
Phone: 806-781-8484
E-mail: publisher@chaplainpublishing.com
Local Heroes Honored After Sixty Plus Years
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DE1F26;”]M[/dropcap]any times accomplishments from our youth quietly slip into obscurity. Not so for the players of the West Frankfort Cardinals, a minor league team from the late 1940s. Author Toby Brooks seeks to recognize these men by telling the story of the team. In his book, Season of Change: Baseball, Coal Mining, and a Small Town’s Struggle to Beat the Odds, Brooks outlines the creation of this minor league team at a time when southern Illinois was booming due to the coal industry.
“I grew up here my entire life and never knew the team existed” said Brooks. “I want to make sure young people know that West Frankfort was once a bustling, active place.” At first the team was greeted enthusiastically by the community in which it was situated. The team won the league championship in 1948. With the decline of the coal industry, though, the team fell on hard times. On December 1, 1950 management made the hard decision to close down.
Season of Change is available online at www.westfrankfortcardinals.com where the author has posted additional stories of the team as well as additional pictures of the West Frankfort Cardinals and West Frankfort in general. Visitors may also comment on the many links and blog posts and engage in discussion with others, posting their own remembrances about the team and the town in its heyday.
A portion of the proceeds from Season of Change will go to the athletics department at Frankfort Community High School.
About Toby Brooks
Author Toby Brooks currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Texas Tech University of Health Services in Lubbock, Texas. Brooks grew up in southern Illinois graduating from Pope County High School. He then attended Southeastern Illinois College and Southern Illinois University. After earning his Masters and PhD from the University of Arizona, Brooks has divided his time between working as an athletic trainer and teaching at the university level full-time. Season of Change is his fourth book, and he is currently working on a book about the Street Machine Nationals that was held in DuQuoin each year from 1985-1997.
