JOLIET — At the Old Joliet Prison, made famous by the “Blues Brothers” film, the Joliet Slammers baseball team staff were generously handing out tickets to a ballgame recently, helping kick off the statewide celebration of the Route 66 centennial.
But at this so-called Big House Ballgame, you might have needed a “Get out of jail free card” to leave.
That’s because the Joliet Slammers Baseball Team Historic Exhibition used the prison yard to launch the months-long festivities marking the Mother Road’s 100th birthday near the old path of U.S. Route 66. The high walls, barbed wire and guard towers served as a jailhouse ballgame reminder.
Guests entered where Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi filmed the beginning of the movie, the “Blues Brothers.” Iconic actor Bill Murray, who is part of the ownership team, also was present at the Frontier League exhibition game on April 30, which brought baseball back to the prison for the first time since it closed in 2002.
Once inside the prison walls, Quinn Adamowski, Joliet Area Historical Museum Board president and lifelong Joliet resident, welcomed the crowd. “For decades, residents and visitors alike wondered about this site, and wondered about inside the walls. For those decades, this site defined Joliet in many ways,” Adamowski said.
The Museum partnered with Robert Navarro, president and CEO of Heritage Corridor Destinations, and submitted the grant to put on the event through the Illinois Office of Tourism, aiming to bring Illinoisans together to celebrate.
Not only did Illinois show up for the game, so did Hollywood.
Many spectators were adorned in pop culture costumes and references from the realms of Illinois, baseball and incarceration, including the Black Sox from “Field of Dreams”, the “Ghostbusters” and the stars from “Prison Break”.
And of course, the “Blues Brothers.”
The game fits into a larger piece of Illinois history.
Catie Sheehan, the deputy director of the Illinois Office of Tourism, announced the beginning of the Route 66 events at the game.
“You know, Route 66 is all about memorable stops,” Sheehan said. “And I’ve got to say that a ballgame at a prison shoots right to the top of the list of memorable stops. So it’s great to be incarcerated with everyone here today.”
The game was only the beginning of many festive Route 66 Illinois events that’ll be taking place this year, sponsored and organized by the Illinois Route 66 Centennial Commission. Joliet is one of nearly a hundred communities along the 300-mile Illinois stretch of the Mother Road from Chicago to Pontiac, Bloomington, Springfield, Litchfield and Edwardsville.
Baseball games are becoming a part of a broader movement, playing back to the roots of the game. Major League Baseball will be having a third installment of their “Field of Dreams” game this summer in a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa, based on that movie’s location.
Despite the Slammers losing to the Gateway Grizzlies, 14-3, Darrin Thurman, tourism manager for the Springfield Illinois Convention and Visitors Bureau was awestruck by the event. Thurman claims it is one of the most unique events he has helped organize.
“Yeah, I mean, when could you play in an old prison? You know, there’s just so much history here,” Thurman said. “You think about the stories and the people that existed here. I saw the players warming up and they had their phones out and they were just filming around them inside this, you know, this old stone. So I just thought it was really cool.“
Chloe Park of the Medill Illinois News Bureau contributed to this story.
Julia Levy is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
