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Former players reflect on time with Capahas ‘family’
New Cape Central baseball coach Matt Palmer is not only a former Major League pitcher but an alum of a fraternity that has played for 130 years.
Palmer was once a member of the Capahas, the oldest amateur baseball team in America that was shepherded by the Bolen Family, first by Jess (manager and general manager) and his wife Mary (fundraiser and organizer), and their son Tom, who was both a player and manager for the Capahas.
“Jess is the ultimate player’s coach,” said Skylar Cobb, former Capahas and Southeast Missouri State pitcher and current Scott City High School baseball coach. “He lets the guys play. He knows they’re there for a reason and he pencils you in the lineup and you go and do your thing.”
The Capahas, who were originally named that due to their first sponsor, the Capaha Flour Company, were inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. Since 1980, the Capahas have won 20 state and regional titles (and earned six other at-large berths) to advance to the National Baseball Congress World Series.
They played in one of the first night games in Capaha Park history back in 1949. The Capahas played in a game featuring Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean in 1931 and took on a squad filled with St. Louis Browns players in 1908.
Their time in the Mon-Clair League was the beginning of the end but the program was at its best when it was a mainstay in the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kansas, from 1982 to 2016.
“Before all the college leagues developed and the Cape Cod League, those types of big-time leagues, this is where they all played,” said Cobb, who would hear stories from Bolen about the Capahas playing at the NBC World Series, going up against a team featuring future MLB legends.
The prevailing theme from the former players about their time with the Capahas was that it was more than just an amateur summer baseball team comprised of college baseball players.
It was a family.
“It was unique,” Bolen said. “It was like we were all brothers on the same team. We took them in, me and Mary, we would get so close to these players that they felt like our kids.”
Cobb remembers going to the Bolen household to pick up his uniform for the summer season and meet with Jess and his family.
“They were very family-oriented with the way they did things and it worked out really well,” Cobb said.
For Adam Blum, the Capahas was his college team.
Both Blum and Cobb were part of a Capahas team that went 32-5 and won four games at the NBC World Series in 2013.
Blum played at Mineral Area College and transferred to SEMO but didn’t play with the Redhawks.
“To end my baseball career with the Capahas as opposed to having a senior year in college was just fine with me,” Blum said. “It was that great. I loved it.
“Some people might say you didn’t fulfill all four years in college baseball but I kind of still felt like I did playing with the Capahas. It was just because of the type of team it was and the people that we played with and against.”
A handful of former Capahas players went on to play in the big leagues. Not just Palmer, but also former Chicago White Sox pitcher Cliff Politte, former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Kerry Robinson, and Detroit Tigers pitcher Mike Henneman.
Austin Dill is one former Capaha who is still pitching in the pro ranks. While baseball is currently an occupation for him, the Capahas were the opposite.
“I think at times with what I’m doing, playing in the Frontier League this year, playing in the Pioneer League last year, you kind of lose that sense of it’s just a kid’s game and you got to have fun while playing it,” Dill said. “With the Capahas, it was not pro ball, you’re not getting paid to do it, but it was fun playing baseball. I think we forget that at times.”
Dill, also a former Notre Dame pitcher, pitched in the Mon-Clair League Championship Series back in 2021 and is currently in the Frontier League playing for the Tri-City ValleyCats.
“I can’t say enough good things about not only the team but the Bolen family,” Dill said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be where I am right now without them allowing me to play on their team. Back then I didn’t weigh a whole lot but I had the skill to play and I like to think they saw that and they just gave me a chance to go out on the mound every day and pitch for them.”
Dill went 6-0 as the Capahas’ ace in 2021 and pitched in the first game of the championship doubleheader against the Millstadt Green Machine. Bolen took a chance at a late bloomer and it paid off.
“They just let me play when a lot of other places really wouldn’t give me that opportunity,” Dill said.
While Cape Girardeau has the Catfish of the Prospect League now, there may truly not be anything that matches what the Capahas meant a lot to a lot of people in this community.
“Playing for the Capahas was the true embodiment of what it meant to have fun while playing baseball,” Dill said. “Those years, I’ll never forget.”