Baseball is certainly in the blood for Lockport’s Justin VanderTuuk
.
His dad, Christopher
, played the sport in college at St. Francis in Joliet and his mom, Ali
, coached softball in college and played professionally for the Virginia Roadsters.
Now, VanderTuuk’s parents are in the stands rooting him on. And the junior center fielder always hears them.
“It’s pretty great,” VanderTuuk said. “My parents push me pretty hard. They coached me most of my life. I think they did a great job and they do a phenomenal job supporting me. My mom’s one of the loudest ones in the stands with her whistle.
“That’s nice. I always know who’s cheering.”
VanderTuuk gave his mom plenty to whistle about Saturday night, going 2-for-4 with three RBIs to lead the Porters to a 7-3 win over Lyons in the Do It Stevie’s Way Tournament championship game at Ozinga Field in Crestwood.
Adam Kozak
doubled and scored two runs and Bryce Flood
singled and scored two runs, while Ryan Groberski
and Nathan Byrdak
each added an RBI for Lockport (20-12-1), which ended up winning the 16-team tournament for the second time in three years.
Jack Schiek
threw four no-hit innings, allowing one earned run, to earn the victory on the mound. Michael Mango chipped in with an RBI single for Lyons (20-11).
VanderTuuk also received a Do It Stevie’s Way award, given to a player from each team in the tournament who plays the game the right way.
Lockport’s Justin VanderTuuk (30) connects for a hit against Lyons in the Do It Stevie’s Way Tournament championship game at Ozinga Field in Crestwood on Saturday, May 18, 2024. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
“It feels amazing,” VanderTuuk said. “I didn’t really think I was going to get it. There are so many other guys on the team who could have gotten it. It was kind of a surprise.
“I just come out and try to support the guys as much as I can and do my job.”
Lockport coach Scott Malinowski
said VanderTuuk was most deserving of the honor.
“He’s such a great teammate,” Malinowski said. “He’s so selfless. He cares so much about the guys around him more than himself. Every game, he’s the loudest guy in the dugout.
“Every game, he’s always picking his teammates up.”
Lockport’s players hold up the championship trophy after winning the Do It Stevie’s Way Tournament championship game at Ozinga Field in Crestwood on Saturday, May 18, 2024. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
VanderTuuk also lifted up his team with his bat Saturday night, ripping a two-run single to right field to deliver the biggest blow in a five-run second inning. He added an RBI single in the fourth.
In his first varsity season, VanderTuuk was immediately inserted into the middle of the Porters’ lineup and has thrived there.
“It was obviously a big role to fill, but I trusted myself to do it and trusted my teammates to help me do it,” VanderTuuk said. “I trusted my work. I believed in myself, and it’s worked out so far.”
VanderTuuk has also exceeded expectations in the field.
“We were a little concerned about what we’d get defensively from him,” Malinowski said. “We were like, ‘We know he can swing it, but we do we have a position for him?’ He started off in right field and did a great job, so much so that we now moved him to center.
“It shows how hard he’s worked on what was probably one of the biggest weaknesses in his game.”
Lockport’s Justin VanderTuuk swings at a pitch against Lyons in the Do It Stevie’s Way Tournament championship game at Ozinga Field in Crestwood on Saturday, May 18, 2024. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
At the same time, Schiek thrived under the lights in a minor league stadium. The sophomore right-hander walked four and hit two batters but did not allow a hit and held the Lions to one run.
“The adrenaline was through the roof,” Schiek said. “All the noise, everyone around, it felt like a playoff atmosphere. It was amazing. I had a lot of fun out there.”
Schiek is one of several sophomores playing big roles for the Porters. He said all the young players look up to VanderTuuk for leadership.
“Justin is like the rock of the team,” Schiek said. “He’s always there for you. He’s always telling you what to do better. The criticism is always out of love.
The Portage City Council is taking another stab at annexing 38 acres after repealing an attempt to do so last year.
Providence Real Estate wants to build a subdivision on the 120-acre Carlson Farm property. Already, about 80 acres are within the city limits, having been annexed last year.
Late last year, the council approved the annexation but delayed approval of the fiscal plan for it until the newly elected council members could consider it. But the fiscal plan is supposed to be approved first, so the council is going through the process again, using an ordinance that includes both the fiscal plan and annexation in a single document.
Attorney Greg Bouwer, representing Providence Real Estate Development, and Providence Vice President Doug Ehens walked the council through the plans for the new subdivision, though the plans would have to go through the Plan Commission and possibly the Board of Zoning Appeals before the council would weigh in on those plans. The issue now is simply whether to annex the additional 38 acres.
“We want to be upfront with the city. We want to show what our intentions are,” Bouwer said.
“It’s the best thing to be upfront with the city of Portage what you’re wanting to do,” Mayor Austin Bonta said. That transparency fast-tracks the process.
Providence is proposing a 235-unit subdivision with a mix of traditional single-family homes, paired villas and cottage homes. “We’re trying to do an overall community here,” Bouwer said, to target various age groups and growing families.
Ehens said the single-story cottage homes would have exterior maintenance included in the cost. The square footage for the larger homes would range up to 3,000.
Prices would vary, depending on options, but could go up to $400,000 or more for traditional single-family homes. “We have a lot of options to choose from,” Ehens said.
Almost every undeveloped residential area in the city is zoned R1, Bonta said. The 38 acres under consideration now would be added to the city with an R1 zone.
However, Providence is likely to seek permission for a planned unit development if the annexation goes through. That would allow a zoning category custom-tailored for that development only.
A public hearing will be held when the council votes on the proposed annexation.
A special meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. May 28 to reestablish the cumulative capital rate before the May 31 deadline. “This year, we’re running a little bit behind establishing it,” Clerk-Treasurer Liz Modesto said.
That property tax rate is at .0432. The city proposes to increase it to .05, or one-sixth of a cent.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A new group has been formed to address the growing problem of pollution from plastics.
Valparaiso University chemistry professor Julie Peller put the issue in perspective at a recent forum.
“This is a really scary statistic, that half of all plastic ever produced has been made in the last 20 years,” she said on Wednesday, May 8.
“There was a time around 1960 where we generated about 2.5 pounds of waste per person per day, and that’s just about doubled. If we continue on this trajectory of producing more and more waste, things are going to get pretty ugly,” Peller said.
“We all know that plastic doesn’t decompose,” so this will be a problem for generations to come, she said.
Compounding the problem is the fiscal reality of how Americans view waste disposal. “We all pay the same amount to get rid of our garbage so there there’s just really no incentive financially to change what we’re doing,” she said.
Peller cited numerous adverse health effects from the presence of nanoplastics and microplastics – basically the same thing except the size of the particles differs.
Microplastics are everywhere.
Peller said making sure the water she uses in the laboratory doesn’t have plastic molecules is difficult.
“We literally just took a drop and used the microscope type of slide and let it dry on the slide and then we viewed it with our microscope. We couldn’t get a drop of water that wasn’t full of nanoplastics already,” she said.
“We couldn’t even do our blank from our lab water that was free of plastics, and this is supposed to be the highest purity water that’s out there,” Peller said.
Now there’s a water deionizer to get all the ions out of the water. The water passes through plastic filters that pick up some of the nanoplastics.
“We literally have a setup in our lab now where we boil water and then we condense it in the hopes of leaving all that plastic behind. I have a glass condensing tube that now has a white film around it from all that plastic,” Peller said.
Valparaiso University chemistry professor Julie Peller speaks to environmentalists about pollution from plastics on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (Doug Ross/for Post-Tribune)
Adam Harrington, cofounder of Mermaid Straw, has been concerned about this issue for years. “We have been working with Julie for the past four to five years coming up with solutions,” he said.
One solution is to refuse to use single-use plastic straws provided by restaurants and instead choose reusable straws like the ones his company sells, he said.
Mermaid Straw also hosts cleanups on the beach and in communities to pick up litter.
“We need more people on board with this,” Harrington said. “We want to build this community of people that want to actually not just talk about it but actually take action.”
“We need to address the fundamental source of the problem,” a retired VU faculty member at the forum said. “You go to Costco, and they’re carrying these bags full of these individual water bottles, 24 in a case, and it looks like they don’t have any water at home.”
Another attendee told of picking up waste during breaks while building an addition to a school in Nicaragua. “You’d be surprised at how many people actually watch and see what you’re doing,” he said.
During recess, the students acted on their own to follow suit. “It’s amazing how just being an example can spread that,” he said.
Walt Breitinger took VU to task for using throwaway plastic utensils in the cafeteria. “It’s time for the students to start to scream and holler and really make a point with the administration,” he said. “You are the customers here. You are the ones paying the bills, or your parents.”
In Porter County, the only plastics that can be recycled are bottles, tubs (like cottage cheese comes in) and jugs, said Keri Marrs Barron, director at Porter County Recycling & Waste Reduction. “We don’t want clamshells.”
Peller said individuals can ask stores to package things differently so less plastic is used.
“Our first step was bringing the community together,” Valparaiso City Council member Ellen Kapitan, D-At-large, said. “It’s going to take a lot of us to influence change.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
“It was a quarter to three when I struggled into Duffy’s Tavern. As usual, Duffy wasn’t there but Archie the bartender set me up with two fingers of rye. I nodded gratefully, thankful that he remembered this broken-down sports writer’s beverage of choice.”
— Filthy McNasty from John Mutka’s November 7, 2003 column
In the early days, John Mutka showed me the art of working a press box.
I never got to his level.
I always felt like the invisible man when I covered a game with Mutka.
He knew everyone in the press box plus the janitors and they’d all stop to say, “Hi.” It took him 10 minutes to get to his seat in a high school press box the size of a kitchen.
What was, I? Chopped liver.
In Mutka’s presence, I was and that was okay. He earned the goodwill one story at a time in over 50-plus years working as a sports writer for the Post-Tribune.
For Mutka, it was easy. He just showed up as himself.
Underneath his punny facade, Mutka was endearing, lovable, funny, and a world-class human being who was devoted to his family.
Coaches and players gravitated toward him because they knew they’d get a fair shake. There are hundreds of former Region athletes who remember the story that Mutka wrote about them years ago fondly.
He died on Tuesday in Colorado, where he had moved about a year ago to live close to his children.
Mutka retired from the Post-Tribune once in 2003 and again in 2016 — working as a freelancer for his final run.
My relationship with John started when I was roughly 10 years old. It was one-sided then. I was always a newspaper rat and the sports page was my favorite. On some days, Mutka was Filthy McNasty, a character he had developed to commiserate about sports on slow news days. McNasty always went to Duffy’s Tavern and Duffy was never there. A generation of early Mutka readers still talk about Filthy.
I got to know Mutka a little when I was younger through his kids.
We went to the same Catholic grade school in Valparaiso and John’s oldest son, Mike, was my brother’s age. Mutka coached their basketball team and worked as the school Athletic Director in his spare time. I spent a Saturday or two hanging out at the Mutka house, tagging along with my brother.
In 1997, I was hired at the Post-Tribune as a sports writer.
Mutka and I bonded immediately.
We spent many hours in the car on the way to assignments talking and it wasn’t usually about sports.
The subject could be politics, our families, a movie (he loved old movies), or writing.
He was devoted to his wife Ginny, who died in 2020.
In her later years, Ginny developed Alzheimer’s.
Mutka dutifully took care of her at home while continuing to write.
He agonized about putting her in a nursing home near the end.
He’d stop by once, sometimes twice daily to see her even though she didn’t always recognize him.
About a year ago, I went to John’s going away party when he was leaving for Colorado.
I felt like I was in a press box with him again.
Dozens of people stopped by to say goodbye. John was energized by the outpouring. He loved interaction with people, many of whom knew him through his stories.
As a journalist, John wrote with a light touch, sometimes with an awful pun mixed in that was funny because it was quintessential John.
Like Filthy McNasty, it was one of his trademarks.
John never used a blow torch to firebomb someone in his columns. Occasionally, you’d get a scalpel incision in the form of a clever jab that you had to read closely to get.
But outrage wasn’t his thing.
Mutka didn’t draw attention to himself when he wrote, which is a rare quality in a business that is ego-driven.
In many ways, John was the right person at the right time in the right place for his job.
He was born in Whiting in 1936 who graduated from Indiana with a journalism degree. While there, John served as the editor of the Indiana Daily Student. He spent a few years at the Frankfort Times before coming home to work at the Post-Tribune in 1963.
Northwest Indiana was a vibrant place for newspapers for years.
The Post-Tribune had a great sports department in the 70s and 80s, with Mutka and other writers like Al Hamnik, Richard Grey and John Walsh.
Mutka was a star, often writing three or four columns a week while covering a high school football game in the fall and high school basketball in the winter. On Friday nights, Mutka would race back to the Gary office after a football game to help put out the paper.
He covered all the Chicago professional teams, colleges and local sports.
Mutka was inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame and he was awarded the Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest civilian honor in Indiana, for his sports writing.
Mutka was offered a job at the Chicago Tribune, one of the North Stars for newspaper reporters but he turned it down because he didn’t want his identity to get swallowed up in the machinery of a large paper.
In his retirement, Mutka started writing sports posts on Facebook.
His last post came on May 10. It was about a Valparaiso University basketball transfer.
Even in his final days, Mutka was still working on his craft.
It was what kept him fully alive.
I can say with certainty there will never be another John Mutka.
He did all of it the right way until the very end.
A celebration of Mutka’s life will be held this summer (date to be announced) at St. Paul’s Catholic Church at 1855 Harrison Blvd in Valparaiso. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in John’s name to the St. Agnes Adult Day Services Center at 1859 Harrison Blvd, Valparaiso, In 46385.
Mike Hutton is a freelance reporter and columnist for the Post-Tribune.
Six people were shot and hospitalized after a mass shooting on Chicago’s West Side Saturday night, officials said.
A group of men were gathered on the 700 block of South Albany Ave. in the Garfield Park neighborhood just before 10 p.m. when shots were fired from a distance.
Three men were taken to the hospital in critical condition, police said.
The six men shot ranged from 21 to 39 years old. The men listed in critical condition — ages 21, 23 and 27 — were all shot in the back or the face. All of the men were taken to Stroger or Mt. Sinai hospitals.
