He Has Returned To His Roots

"I just like being home," says Boddicker, who's picking up most of the $3,000 cost of new dugouts over at the high school. "I like seeing my family every day, and at Christmas I like getting together to exchange gifts. When it snows, we like going over to each other's houses to play canasta or charades. Norway is a nice place to live."

Friday, Nov. 4, 1983 was proclaimed Mike Boddicker Day in Norway: no 76 trombones, no 110 cornets, no big parade. What they had for him was a cafeteria-style supper at American Legion Post 234, and 315 folks had the walls straining. The mayor, John Stoner, said Mike's was a Horatio Alger story. The White Sox' Leyland, in the area on a hunting trip, said, "Mike has it all: character, poise and talent. And a real pretty wife." At the end of the evening Boddicker was presented with a few gifts, and don't think the townspeople don't know the way to his heart. He received a gold-plated trap and a shotgun.

A few days later, in a steady rain, Boddicker was out in the fields behind Joe Schulte's farm looking for pheasants with a friend, Kevin Schulte, and Hershey—or Fleahead, as Mike calls him. A cock pheasant was sitting very tight as Boddicker and Schulte walked by him, but Hershey, stumbling along behind, wandered near the bird and up it went.

In the time it takes for a foshball to reach the plate, Boddicker wheeled around, saw the bird was a male, waited a moment to see if Kevin wanted the shot and fired. The pheasant, cleanly hit, dropped to the ground.

The look on Boddicker's face told you why he's here to stay.