FOX 9 Town Ball Tour: Loretto Larks baseball and Koskie family

Welcome back to Fox 9's Town Ball Tour. And welcome back to Fox 9's Town Ball Tour. Tonight we're in Loretto. Beautiful night for baseball on our last stop of the Fox 9 Town Ball Tour. A bit sad about that, but it's been a good night so far. We've got a good night of baseball. First pitch is at 7 o'clock. Then, of course, the Loretto Larks taking on the Howard Lake Orphans tonight. Jimmy, good game, good lineup. Yes, and there may be some star power in that Loretto lineup. At least maybe the D.H. spot. He couched that a little bit. Maybe, he said. I don't know about that. I don't know as much star power anymore. Joining us is Corey Koski and his son Joshua. Both play for the Larks. And, of course, Corey, latest addition to the Twins Hall of Fame. Yeah, thank you. Won this year, but last year. Congratulations on that. Thank you. It was a very cool weekend seeing all your teammates come back and the stories. It had to have been real heartwarming for you to have the organization recognize you like that. Yeah, it was fun. Anytime you can put on that blue jacket with the guys that's there, it's a kind of really cool experience and humbling to be a part of that. Town ball is a big deal here in this town, as it has been for you and your family. Four sons, right? Absolutely. Playing tonight. Josh is with us. You're playing tonight. What's it like having your family, your sons, playing baseball with you after a major league career like that? It's great. And you know what? At the end of the day, I have to give all the credit to our clubhouse guy, Rod McCormick, because I didn't want to play after my career was over because I didn't want to embarrass myself. And one time it was after actually Joe's Hall of Fame induction. We were at Joe's place. I was telling him, Bradley's always on me and wants me to play. And he's like, why don't you play? I'm like, because I can't hit anymore. And I'm old. He goes, who cares? You get to play with your sons. And I said, you know what? Fair point. And so I decided to go out and play. And it became really difficult because I had to get a release from the Cubs because I never officially got a release. And so it was a little bit of drama for me to play town ball because the town ball league wanted me to get an official release. I'm like, look, I haven't played in 15 years. And so I had to get a release and send it off. But you are a DH, so you must still be able to hit. Well, I think sometimes they give me a courtesy DH, a courtesy time like that. All right, Josh, did you push your dad as well, you and your brothers? Did you want this to happen? Or were you like, I don't know, do we really want Dad the dugout? That was kind of before my time. Like he said, it was my older brother pushing him a lot towards it. But I think it was my second or third year here that he decided to come play with us. And, yeah, I mean, I was pushing for it. It was fun to watch. What's it like to see your sons playing out there? Are you a dad or a coach or both? Well, I'm a teammate when we play here. And it's fun. But, you know, obviously I've seen them play a lot of baseball. But what I really enjoy is like watching and being a part of their interactions in the cage and hanging out and talking to the other guys and kind of joking with them as a teammate would in that and kind of getting on them. And that road versus kind of a dad coach scenario. Josh, what about playing with siblings? Are you harder on them than you would be some of your other teammates? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's a lot of fun to play with them. But they for sure get the worst end of things. Like our little one talks about how good he is and how much he rakes. He's still over in the large uniform right now. Sorry to call him out like that. But he likes to talk a lot. So, I mean, they're your brothers. You give it to them a little tougher than you do everyone else. Yeah, yeah. That's so great. What about the community? It is a community affair when you're talking about town ball and legion ball. What's that been like for the Koskys? It's like you see it right here. This is what town ball is about. And it's just really exciting when you go into these different communities and play. And Herb has done an absolutely phenomenal job. You look at the ballpark. This is something he puts his whole life into. And this is awesome. And finally, just about playing in the games and stepping into the box. Is there any comparison to what you used to face? Do you feel the same? Like you said, you're worried about making yourself look silly sometimes. Playing now, I can't understand how I did it back then. Because hitting is hard. That's the thing. That's the biggest difference. I don't realize how I did it back then. I got a new respect for guys who play now and even what I did. I don't even remember how I did what I did. Do hamstrings and Achilles tendons, do they think about those things? I don't even think about that. When I go in every day, I'm like, I hope I don't hurt anything. Exactly. Well, Corey and Josh, we appreciate you being here tonight. Good luck. Thank you. We'll be watching you at the plate. All right. Thank you. All right. Great. All right, Ian Leonard is out there. Ian, one more check of the weather for us. What do you got? Well, I always check out the hamburgers, right? Everywhere we go. So we're going to do that. West Suburban Fire taking care of things. But how about this? Somebody said, oh, yeah, we got a bunch of these printed up for you. I'm like, all right. And they've got a bunch of different guys. So, Randy, I've got some of these. We'll put these inside your locker at Fox 9. So even when I'm not there, I'm there with you. I got my hamburger. Hardest working volunteers in the place. Follow me. I want to show you one of the amazing things of this ball field. I always say that every town ball tour stop has its own little idiosyncrasies, its own little differences. Hi. How are you? But follow me. Look, you don't need a big grandstand when you have this massive natural grandstand right here. Let's find some people. We're going to go for hi. Hi. How are you? Hi. How are you? Thank you. I love your pants, too. Hi. How are you? Look at this. Somebody's in charge of saving space. Here she is right here. But let's come on up here. Here we go. This looks like a lovely place to sit with some people. Hi. Look here. You can hold up the, you can hold the, yeah, okay. So I'm going to open up the burger. By the way, how about this? They serve the burgers in their own little handy thing. We're going to get to this in a minute. But first.