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A charter bus caught fire early Friday as it was transporting a professional baseball team from Iowa to a game in a Chicago suburb.
Members of the Sioux City Explorers made it off the bus safely, although several lost their gloves when the overhead bins melted.
The fire started as the bus approached the 1,400-person town of Earlham, Iowa, about a third of the way into its 490-mile drive to Geneva, Illinois, where the game was being played. Earlham Fire & Rescue blamed a mechanical issue for sparking the fire, which rapidly spread from the engine to the passenger area, where many of the players were sound asleep.
“I was woken up to guys walking past me saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get off the bus. There’s smoke back here,'" said J.D. Scholten, a 44-year-old pitcher who also serves in the Iowa Legislature.
The flames broke the windows of the bus, but firefighters were called around 2:45 a.m. and quickly extinguished the blaze, volunteer firefighter Blake Boyle said.
He said the driver, realizing something was wrong, had gotten off the interstate and was heading toward town on a smaller highway. The bus left a a trail of oil.
“It was probably spraying oil all over the motor," Boyle said. “And then once they stopped it, it caught fire.”
Another charter bus was able to pick up the team, which arrived at their hotel around 11 a.m. — about three hours later than expected, Scholten said.
Batting practice was canceled. But the team, which is a member of an independent league called the American Association of Professional Baseball, was proceeding with the game scheduled for Friday evening against the Kane County Cougars in Geneva, Illinois.
Scholten lost only a couple hats, a pillow and a water bottle because most of his gear was stowed in the relatively undamaged bins below the bus. He said he didn't know what his teammates whose gloves were destroyed were going to do.
“We’re just kind of playing it by ear,” he explained, as a group text pinged his phone. Teammates were off to Target and wanted to know if anyone needed anything.
The blaze came during a season that has been full of surprises. After going years without touching a ball, Scholten started obsessing over YouTube videos on pitching mechanics in the early days of the pandemic. Then he bought a dozen balls and a net.
Last month, the team had a pitching emergency. There was a music festival that day and Scholten had already drank a beer. But he pitched anyway and got the win. Now he is part of the rotation, sometimes throwing to a catcher half his age.
“That’s part of, minor league baseball is there’s always weird things that happen," Scholten said. "Notorious bus issues. But this kind of takes the cake when it comes to all of that.”