Shooky Fink Field

New Albin did have its share of famous athletes. Milton Edward Gantenbein (May 31, 1910 – December 18, 1988) was an American football player who played on three championship teams, as an end and as a defensive end for the Green Bay Packers from 1931 to 1940. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1972 and finished his career with three NFL championships, 77 receptions, 1,299 yards and eight touchdowns. Milt played in 103 regular-season games as a Packer.

SHOOKY FINK FIELD - Arguably the real field of baseball dreams in Iowa, this field in New Albin, home field for Kee High School located 11 miles away in Lansing, is named for Harris "Snooky" Fink, a baseball icon for kids growing up in that far NE corner of the state. Fink loves to tell the story about when, as boys, he and his brother would hoe into the family garden, now the ballfield, until they were obscured by sweetcorn, and then take off somewhere to play baseball. He grew up loving the game, and became good at it, but never made it big in part because of a "bad ticker," a heart valve problem that he said made his chest "gurgle" when he ran.

The malady kept him out of the military during World War II, and he went to Chicago to take a job as a machinist. In his free time he played catch with neighborhood kids on a lot where a church had been torn down near his apartment building.

"God, they liked to play ball," Fink says. "When I'd get home from work, they'd be waiting for me on my steps." A noise complaint from a neighbor who worked nights brought Chicago cops to Fink's makeshift ballfield, but after investigating, they figured out it was the constant ballgames that helped hold down vandalism in the area, and they ended up trying to give Shooky a commendation rather than a citation.

Eventually, Shooky moved back to New Albin and took up the baseball program there in the late 1950's. The enthusiasm came with him.