September 24, 2024

By Wil Yamka

Canadian Baseball Network

If you were to ask me “What do you see yourself doing in the future?” when I was a 10-year-old playing for the Oakville A’s, I’m not sure spending the summer in Kingman, Kansas would have been on my bingo card.

As a kid from Oakville, I never really thought I lived in a big city. Flash forward 10 years, preparing to join the Kingman Islanders for the second straight summer it turns out I might have.

Kingman is a town of just under 3,000 people located in South-Central Kansas. It is home to the Islanders, a collegiate summer ball team that plays in the Sunflower Collegiate League. The heart and soul of Kingman baseball, coach Toby Munz, gave me the opportunity to return to the Islanders for the second straight summer and is someone I will always be grateful for.

I know coach Munz as the head coach of the Kingman Islanders, but most people around town know him as the head coach of the Kingman Eagles, the town’s high school team. Coach Munz started the high school program in 2008 and still assumes the head coaching position to this day.

He helped bring the collegiate summer team to town four years ago as well, so it can be said he has quite literally brought the game to Kingman. Coach Munz also runs a youth camp for all the boys and girls in town during the first three weeks of June. Known as “Munz Camp,” it teaches the kids the fundamentals of baseball and is highlighted with a day of “Munz ball.”

This is a Kingman special where on a ball hit over the outfielder’s head, the hitter doesn’t stop running, collecting as many bases as possible by running back to first and collecting their fifth total base/point. The play ends, and the batter is out when the fielder’s have successfully thrown the ball to third, then second, and then finally first. I helped out at this camp during my first summer and got to see the impact it had.

Around 50 kids, aged 6-to-13, showed up excited to learn and play every day, and I quickly realized that the spirit for the sport was high within the town, and the love ran deep, thanks to Toby Munz.

I made my first appearance for the Islanders this summer in their first game back from the all-star break. It was July 4, and I had never been to the United States for the holiday, so I was pretty excited. First pitch was set for 6 p.m., an hour earlier than most games, as we were set to take on the Great Bend Bat Cats at Riverside Park in Kingman.

Riverside Park is comprised of two softball fields, the concession stand, the bullpen, which is unique in the sense that it is located outside of the field behind the grandstand, and finally, the ball field, which can be identified by its all brown turf infield and natural grass outfield. The whole park is actually surrounded by a body of water; the South Fork Ninnescah River branches off and wraps around the park before rejoining it, making the park an island, thus the name the “Islanders.”

I arrived at the Island an hour or so before game time, and I was set to make the start. Warming up, I could feel the Kansas heat as it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), and if you have ever experienced July in Kansas, you know just how humid it can get. I’m one to sweat a lot, so by the time I was done throwing my pre-game bullpen and on the line for the national anthem, it looked like I had played 40 minutes in a basketball thriller.

By the time my night was over in the sixth, the sun had gone away, but the heat still hadn’t. We would go on to win that night by a score of 5-3, and later on, I saw more fireworks than I had ever seen. For a town of 3,000, it seemed like a celebration of 30,000.

One of the coolest parts about my summer ball experience in Kingman was definitely some of the people I had the pleasure of meeting. This summer, I lived with Dakota and Lexi Fischer and their dogs, Roxie and Scout, and even got to spend a little bit of time with their puppy, Rufus.

I also got to meet their neighbors Cody and Britney Collige, as well as their six-year-old son Easton. It was safe to say Easton loved baseball, as whenever I went over to see him, I found myself in a game of catch within the first two minutes.

I spent a lot of time with Easton during my days in Kingman, and on top of playing hours of catch/wiffle ball, Easton enjoyed going to the park, visiting the Tanganyika Wildlife Park, and playing mini sticks (he may have been partially Canadian). Easton was actually also taking skating lessons and is going to be playing in a youth hockey league this winter.

On top of all of that, Easton loved going to the Islanders games every evening, as he would be in attendance for pretty much every single home game and even some away games. His constant energy and care for others made him one of the team’s biggest supporters. Easton is also strong beyond his years and is someone from whom I learned a lot. Throughout the summer, Easton had multiple stays in the hospital while dealing with a plethora of health conditions.

Through different appointments and procedures, Easton just wanted to play his sports and come to the Islanders game. I remember that after his last stay at the hospital, Easton went to the game that night. We ended up losing, but after the game, coach Munz brought him into the dugout and told us that Easton had been released from the hospital and all he wanted to do was watch some Islanders baseball. We all high-fived Easton, and everyone found a smile after a tough one. Easton Collige, you are a warrior.

As a Canadian in Kingman, Kan., without a car, my preferred method of transportation was by foot. I walked everywhere, whether it was to the field or to the gym, and that wasn’t because of the lack of rides. I enjoyed walking, especially to the field before the game. Some people didn’t see the vision, but there was something about walking through the town that was kind of peaceful. It also made me feel like I was a little kid going to play at his local park.

Speaking of Canadians in Kingman, the team has rostered a few in its four-year history despite most of the other players being from around the area. Players like Jack Mount (Val-des-Monts, QC), Eric Foufoulas (Vernon, BC), Gavin Roy (Sudbury, Ont.), Scott Rienguette (Sudbury, Ont.), Yanick Loiselle (Sudbury, Ont.), Aidan Malish (Kelowna, BC), Myles Chamberlain (Victoria, BC), Andrew MacNeil (Georgetown, Ont.), Noah Bourgeois (Surrey, BC) and myself have all put on the Kingman jersey at some point.

The 2024 summer was winding down, and despite not having the biggest roster, we found ways to win some games, but unfortunately, we would not be making the playoffs. With the final home game set for July 17 against the Newton Rebels, Kingman native and Wichita State junior Mason Munz was set to take part in his last game at Riverside Park.

Mason, who is the son of coach Munz, had been playing at the field for as long as he could remember, so this one meant a little more. This would also be fan favourite Ben Waliczek (Wichita, Kan.) and starting pitcher Xander Roberts (Augusta, Kan.) last game on the Island. Before the game, coach Munz gathered the team and broke it down to what seemed to be his catchphrase for the summer. “What are we here to do?”

“Get Better,” the team would reply, and the Islanders would take the field. The Newton Rebels jumped ahead early in this one, scoring one in the second and two in the third to take a 3-0 lead. However, in the bottom of the fifth, we would get all three back, two on a Nolan Freund home run.

Nolan, who is also from Kingman, is a sophomore at Cloud County Community College and was a former quarterback for the town’s high school team, leading them to a state final in 2022. He is also the son of Islanders assistant coach and the newest Eagles head girls’ basketball coach, Neil Freund. With the game remaining tied going into the top of the ninth, Mason Munz was tasked with holding off the Rebel’s offence in his last game, playing in front of the Kingman faithful.

Entering through the bleachers from the bullpen as every relief pitcher does when coming into a game at Riverside Park, Munz put up a zero to give the Islanders a chance to walk it off in the bottom half. The Rebels’ pitching staff responded, however, by putting up a zero of its own to send the game into extras.

It was Munz out again to pitch the 10th, and after a leadoff single, the Rebels had runners on the corners (a ghost runner started on second in extras). On the first pitch of the next at-bat, the runner on first was caught stealing. This was followed by a walk and a wild pitch -- the runner on first, but the man on third had to hold due to the short backstop).

So one out runners on second and third and starting a crazy sequence of events, Munz was able to get weak contact on his next hitter with a little dribbler back to him. He checked the runner on third and threw to first … but his throw was offline. First baseman Kyle Reese (Lebo, KS) came off the bag, but in a heads-up play, Resse fired home to get the runner from third trying to score.

With two on and two out, Coach Munz came out to visit his son for the last time on the mound he grew up on, and Mason would get the next batter looking at strike three on a 3-2 fastball to keep the game tied. We would end up walking it off in the bottom half with a bases-loaded walk, giving the Islanders a 4-3 win in our last game at Riverside.

After the post-game celebration was over and everyone went home, the lights turned off, which officially marked the end of summer baseball on the Island.

We finished off the season with a two-game road series in Hutchinson, Kan., against the Monarchs. Although these games had no implications for the standings, they still meant something as they were the last games played on the all-natural surface of the historic Hobart-Detter Field.

Built in 1928, some pretty good players played there throughout the years, including Mickey Mantle, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds. The Hutchison Monarchs were crowned 2023 NBC World Series champions and were headed to return to the tournament after we left.

We came up short in two hard-fought games, losing 2-1 on Friday night and 5-3 on Saturday night. After the game, the team shared goodbyes and handed in their jerseys. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was on my way to the Wichita airport, and construction was set to begin at Hobart-Detter Field.

As I look back on my two summers in Kingman, I feel more and more grateful for the experiences and, above all, the people. For a small town of 3,000 people, the sense of community I felt was more significant than anything I have felt living in a city of over 200,000.

Although I was a random stranger from Canada, everyone I encountered treated me like I’d been there my whole life. It really isn’t about where you are, in my opinion; it’s about the people you are surrounded by. Thinking about the times when I counted and added the jersey numbers up with coach Munz and Ryan Sauter during the national anthem, played the board game Rack-0 with Dakota and Alexis Fischer, hung out and played yard games with Easton and his family ... it’s easy to see I was surrounded by some pretty dang good people.

If there is one thing I have learned about baseball, it’s that it can bring you to all sorts of places and allow you to meet a whole bunch of people, and I’m thankful for my time on the Island.

(LHP Wil Yamka pitched for the Oakville A’s, the Terriers, the Ontario Blue Jays, attended Cloud County, Sylvan Lake Gulls in the WCBL and this fall will be pitching for the Kansas Wesleyan Coyotes and coach Bill Neale (Collingwood, Ont.)