I pleased to see this article forwarded to me by our commish. It’s about former Illowa APBA League manager Dennis Jennings. Jennings, after eight years, has ran a marathon in all 50 states. Pretty amazing, I thought.
"I don’t even know when I decided I was doing all 50 states," said Jennings, who will compete in today’s East Moline Firecracker Run. "I did the first two in Illinois and my sister, Patty, wanted to do the Grandma’s Marathon in Minnesota and I did that one. At that point, I said, ‘I could do different states for fun.’"
Jennings played a big part in the Illowa APBA League history. Not only that, he was the one whose team I took over. As much as I’d like to claim credit, he was the one who came up with the team name Twin City Thunderchickens.
A pleasant and self-effacing man who yet was heads and shoulders smarter than anyone in our league, Jennings was very shrewd when it came to the came to the game of APBA. He traded me former Rookie of the Year John Castino for Ryne Sandberg when Ryno was a rookie. At least that’s how it was pitched to me.
Sandberg was only one of Jennings’ franchise players. He managed to accumulate a number of great superstars throughout his IAL career. Players like Bobby Grich, Harold Baines, Jim Sundberg, Steve Garvey, Kirk Gibson, Ozzie Smith and Mark McGwire and pitchers like Ron Guidry and John Candelaria.
Jennings won with this crew, too. The Twin City Thunderchickens placed first (in a league of eight teams) in six seasons under Dennis’ management. Two years they won 100 games.
I took his first place of 1988 and could only manage a sixth place finish with a 77-84 in 1989. That if anything, says something (no comments from the peanut gallery :))
So congrats, Dennis on your accomplishment. And don’t be a stranger… stop by an IAL convention sometime.
