Getty Image
Minor league baseball teams have a tendency to rely on zany stunts and promotions to lure in fans, but one squad in Iowa was more concerned with winning when it recruited 44-year-old state rep J.D. Scholten to step up on short notice before he led them to a decisive win.
I’m going to assume most people reading this aren’t intimately familiar with the Sioux City Explorers, a minor league baseball team with a history stretching back more than three decades that’s currently a member of the American Association of Professional Baseball.
While the American Association is technically independent, it’s one of the three MLB Partner Leagues that serve as an official pipeline to The Show. It may not boast any of the top prospects in baseball, but it nonetheless features a level of talent that’s nothing to scoff at.
On Saturday, the Explorers faced off against the Milwaukee Milkmen in a showdown where Philadelphia Phillies prospect Jared Wetherbee was expected to get the start for Sioux City at home.
However, things took a turn when he was scratched just a few hours before the game was set to get underway, which led to Explorers manager Steve Montgomery reaching out to a fairly unlikely source in search of some help: J.D. Scholten, a 44-year-old who currently serves as the congressman for Iowa’s District 1 in the state’s House of Representatives.
It’s obviously worth noting Scholten played baseball in college (he was a member of the Nebraska squad that punched its ticket to the College World Series in 2002) and spent a few seasons with the Explorers after graduating while pursuing a brief career in professional baseball.
Scholten eventually pivoted to politics in the late 2010s and was elected to his current post in 2022. While he’d planned to spend his Saturday volunteering at a festival in Sioux City, he agreed to answer Montgomery’s call for help before taking the mound in a game where he threw 100 pitches and gave up just a couple of earned runs in 6.2 innings while earning the victory in the team’s 11-2 win over the Milkmen.
Scholten—who played six games in the Netherlands after answering the call for a team in a similarly desperate situation in 2023—isn’t planning on a one-and-done stint, as he says he fully intends to take to the mound again when the Explorers face off against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks on Thursday.