We Americans currently focus on our divisions so much that we are blind to the good that people do for one another.

By way of illustration, I give you the Dubois County Bombers of Huntingburg, Indiana.

The Bombers are one of eight teams playing in the Ohio Valley League, a summer college baseball league just like the Valley Baseball League here in the Shenandoah from where I write. Al and I attended one of their games back in 2016, and produced an Off the Beaten Basepaths video on the team and their ballpark, League Stadium, which was used extensively in the filming of the movie, A League of Their Own.

Mike Uebelhor, a managing partner of the Bombers, and his wife Mary, whose lack of an official title belies the many responsibilities that she is asked to fulfill, “spearhead” the Dubois County Leukemia Association, which Mike founded years ago. For five years now, they have asked their players, as well as their vendors—young ladies who don the uniforms of the Rockford Peaches—to sign up for the Be the Match bone marrow registry. Twenty-four did so last Wednesday.

“We’ve had matches from some of our other drives, but have not yet had a match from a Bombers drive,” said Mary via Instant Messenger. “Once you are in the registry, you stay there, so there’s still plenty of time for any of them to be called. It’s sooooo exciting for us when we hear that one of our registrants is a match for someone!”

Mary, who has been on the registry for 25 years herself has never been called, but added, “What a cool thing to be able to save someone’s life – or at least give them a chance!”

No corporate spectacles, no pink baseball bats, no calling attention to how woke our brand is. Just this “cool thing” that a bunch of people in Dubois County, Indiana, and their baseball team do that could, you know, maybe help somebody someday.

Such championship towns cover the map of the United States, and such heroes are everywhere. Thank you, Bombers for reminding us of that.

League Stadium, Huntingburg, IN. For the record, the Bombers won the OVL playoffs in 2015 & 2017.