Professional baseball players from Rigby being remembered with field in their name

RIGBY – A drive line hit from the opposing team shattered Kent Geisler’s kneecap during a home game in July 1957.

The 19-year-old Rigby man — who died in 2020 at age 84 from COVID-19 and is being honored this weekend with a baseball diamond in his name — had spent two seasons with the Salinas Packers, a minor league team affiliated with what was then the California Angels.

His ability to throw a ball at 90 mph had earned him a spot on the Williston Oilers in North Dakota three years earlier. He grew up tossing a ball back and forth on the family farm with his brother, Max, and played American Legion Baseball during high school, according to his family.

But even though Geisler had a mean throw, controlling where it went was not his strength. In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, Geisler’s son, Gary, explains his dad was recruited to play ball as a 17-year-old and most of his teammates were nearly twice his age. Geisler had a lot of raw talent but no one made much of an effort to work with him one-on-one.

“He told me one time there were a couple guys when he was starting out in North Dakota who were known as really good hitters. They were warming up (before a game) and he said he just let one fly and the catcher couldn’t even catch it. It was so high above his head,” Gary says.

The ball ended up hitting the backstop and made quite a racket.

As managers were trying to get the speed of his pitch, Geisler threw it again and again, hitting the backstop every time.

“The first three batters who got in there wouldn’t even hardly stand in the batter’s box because he threw it really hard and they didn’t want anything to do with that wildness,” Gary says, laughing.

On that day in 1957, Geisler was at the pitcher’s mound in Salinas. No one in Geisler’s family knows who the Packers were playing or what the score was, but Geisler’s widow, Bonnie, thinks it was the sixth or seventh inning when her husband threw his typical fast pitch, which resulted in a season-ending injury.

“If it’s going 90 mph and comes off the bat and is going another 100-and-something and hits you in the knee … it can do some damage,” says Gary.

Geisler spent the next 30 days in the hospital and the Packers went on to win the championship that season.

Geisler declined to return the following year, deciding instead to return home to Rigby, where he spent the next 36 years working at the Site.

“With a young family, he decided he better stick around here. I think he just hadn’t had a very good taste of baseball because he started at 17 and got thrown in with (seasoned players),” says Gary.

But his other son, Greg, says one of his dad’s biggest regrets was not returning to give it another shot.

“He was so close to making it to the major leagues and he had scouts looking at him,” Greg says.

Although Geisler worked with many people over the years and acquired many friends, his family says the time he spent as a professional ball player was not something he ever talked about. Many people never knew about it.

“I didn’t even know until we were at a game one time, (and he mentioned it),” says Gary. “He helped out so many of my friends and Greg’s friends. He was always at our practices. Our coaches would always ask him to come and work with the pitchers.”

The west diamond at Rigby South Park will be dedicated as the Kent Geisler field on Saturday at 1 p.m. It will include signage and a memorial plaque explaining who he is.

How it got started

Randy Green, a 71-year-old Rigby resident who was mentored by Geisler at a young age, spearheaded this effort.

“When I was eight years old, my little league coach told me that he was going to have a professional baseball player teach me how to pitch. That was Kent Geisler. We went on to win the little league championship and I was the pitcher that year. That’s just something you don’t forget,” Green says.

The effort to rename the baseball diamond all began with an article Green read in the Jefferson Star two years ago. In the article, Rigby City Councilwoman Aliza King, who coordinates the scheduling for the baseball fields, said people were often confused by the numbers currently used to identify the three fields at Rigby South Park. She wanted to rename them and asked the community for suggestions.

Green called her up to propose his idea, which included naming one of the fields after Geisler and the other after Jack Hawkins.

Who is Jack Hawkins?

Hawkins is another Rigby man who was signed to play with the New York Yankees in the 1930s. He blew out his shoulder and never got the chance, according to Green.

He went on to play for the Idaho Falls Russets, the predecessor to the Chukars, and later owned a service station in Rigby called Husky’s.

Hawkins was born in 1919 in Ione, California, but raised his family in Rigby. He died in 2000 at age 81.

“One of Jack’s sons that passed away, Perry, was my baseball teammate in Pony League. So we were good friends and I knew the Hawkins family really well,” says Green.

Jack’s other son, Billy, was a star basketball player for Rigby High School years ago and later coached at Rigby and Madison. Jack’s granddaughter, Chari Hawkins, is a U.S. Olympic track and field gold medalist.

Green presented his name suggestions to the city council in May, which the Hawkins and Geisler families supported. The opportunity to honor these men fell into Green’s lap and he’s grateful to preserve their memory for future generations.

“They’ve all died and it’s been decades since (their stories have been told). It was brought to our attention that something needs to be done to honor these people who were Rigby legends,” says Green.

On Saturday, the east diamond at Rigby South Park will be dedicated as the Jack Hawkins field at the same time as Geisler’s field.

‘An honor for our dad and … for our family’

Greg looks back on his childhood in Rigby with fondness and he’s grateful for his dad’s decision to give him and his siblings a normal life.

It’s an honor for him and the rest of the Geisler family to see the west field at Rigby South Park carry Kent’s name.

Saturday’s dedication ceremony for the naming of both fields is open to the public.