Back in 2011, he named the Oslin twins, Howard and Harold, and the Telander brothers, Kenny and Johnny, and rattled off the rest of the lineup from 50 years earlier — outstanding teams that just never could get over the final hump to join what was then a less-generous field in number of teams for a state tournament.
The Cubs folded in this tiny burg in 1966. The baseball field became overgrown. Peterson was out of the area for a decade-plus. When he returned in 1988, the Mora school district had gotten the field back in a playable condition to temporarily house its high school team.
This brought back the baseball images of Stan’s youth, and he became dedicated to reviving the Cubs. Peterson would not be deterred, even when the old lights he was bringing in from Sandstone High School cost a mint to be transplanted — and Stan’s “nest egg” became scrambled with a sizable loan.
The Cubs were also mostly … let’s say, noncompetitive. There even was an 89-game losing streak over three seasons in the ’90s.
“We ended it against our archrival, Mora, and a good pitcher,” Peterson said. “I never believed in barking at the other team. But I do remember looking over and the losing pitcher … he just fired his glove against the dugout wall.”
Peterson gave up managing, putting together the team, all of it, in 2017. The Cubs were on the cusp of going away again.