Women’s baseball museum causing tension in Rockford
ROCKFORD — Some residents are crying foul over a proposed museum for women’s baseball in downstate Rockford, which had one of the sport’s most successful teams in the 1940s.
A zoning board in the northern Illinois city postponed a decision Tuesday on a permit for the project at Beyer Park, the Rockford Register Star reported.
The Rockford Park District is willing to sell an acre of the park to the International Women’s Baseball Center.
A group called Friends of Beyer Stadium supports the concept but does not want the museum built on park grounds, saying it wants to preserve the park to honor Beyer high school athletes and has been eyeing a nearby parcel of land for the women’s baseball museum.
“Putting a building in the park would take away from the whole idea of the Peaches and of the track and field,” said Doug Key, whose mother, Dottie Ferguson Key, played for the Peaches, the Register Star reported. “I’m having a hard time putting words together. This is sacred ground.”
The group says it has acquired and donated land directly west of Beyer Park for the women’s baseball museum.
The Rockford Peaches of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League played at Beyer Stadium. The team was featured in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” with Tom Hanks, Madonna and Geena Davis.
The International Women’s Baseball Center is launching a $10 million fundraising campaign for construction of a museum and activity center.
“We’ve had people already calling us from outside the area asking us when the museum is going to open,” said Rosemary Collins, a retired judge involved with the group. “People are interested in this. They will travel here to see it. It will have an economic boon for the entire area.”