Sliding Into Home at Rumpke Ballpark
It was the late 1960’s and the Rumpke Packers ball team traveled from field to field playing game after game throughout Cincinnati, they noticed their wives and children were being left out of the fun. The fields where they played had no amenities. “They were a bad place to take your wife and kids,” said Bill Rumpke Sr., former Packer first and third baseman and owner of Rumpke Consolidated Companies, Inc. “So we decided to build our own fields. I wanted our fields to be the most friendly, family-oriented ball complex in the area.”

For years, Bill and his friends had played ball on a 17-acre gravel pit owned by Bill’s father. That gravel pit seemed like a perfect spot to build the team’s fields. With this in mind, Bill teamed up with his father to begin building the project in 1971, and by 1972 assembled a team to help with construction and management of the softball complex. The management team included Bill’s cousin, the late Tom Rumpke, former co-owner of Rumpke Consolidated Companies, Inc. and Bill’s brother-n-law, Walt Stepaniak.

After naming their new business venture, Rumpke Amusements, the park leaders got to work. A talented team assembled from ball players quickly emerged to contribute surveying and construction services to build those first fields. Bill was managing Rumpke Consolidated Companies’ largest landfill, Rumpke Sanitary Landfill, at the time so he conveniently dispatched two earthmovers and a dozer to the new site to construct a parking lot and level the land. The process took only a month. Rumpke Consolidated Companies, Inc. absorbed $10,000 in excavation costs and another $6,000 for backstops.

Later that year, Rumpke Ballpark opened, hosting approximately 100 teams from leagues brought in by Feldhaus Sporting Goods. That first season leagues fees were about $110. Throughout the 1970’s, the ball park grew to include a concession stand, maintenance building, park lights, six fields, a playground and an irrigation system.

Even today, some of Bill’s best memories include holidays spent with Tom, Walt and fellow ball players at the park coordinating tournaments involving nearly 100 teams each. Other fond memories include a charity game announced by former Cincinnati Reds Joe Nuxhall and Leo Cardenas, as well as special guest visits from former Cincinnati Red Jim Otoole and former Cincinnati Bengal David Fulcher.

Although the original Rumpke Packers team has long since hung up their uniforms and put away their gloves, the Rumpke family still owns and manages the park, which continues to attract players from throughout Greater Cincinnati and beyond. Today, the park proudly hosts several amateur softball tournaments, including one of the nation’s largest, The Metro, and hundreds of teams seven days a week during spring, summer and fall seasons.

This season take your family out to a ball game at Rumpke Ballpark. There’s no better place to slide into home.