On Thursday, April 30, 2026, at approximately 3:05 PM CST, I will officially go to prison.

However, just like my previous excursion to Alcatraz in San Francisco, this will be a temporary situation that I’m paying for the right to do.

While plenty of baseball was played behind the walls of the Old Joliet Prison between 1914, the year it was introduced as an activity at the prison, and 2002, the year the prison closed, the Frontier League’s Joliet Slammers and Gateway Grizzlies will play the first-ever professional tilt there on Thursday, April 30.

Billed as the “marquee event” for the centennial celebration of Route 66, the Slammers will host a pre-season exhibition game in their namesake locale, and the former home of “Joliet” Jake Blues; an idea borne out of the enterprising minds of their famous ownership group consisting of Slammers executive vice president of sales and marketing Night Train Veeck, his father Mike Veeck, the son of legendary former White Sox owner, Bill Veeck and grandson of former Cubs president William Veeck Jr, and Dr. Peter Venkman Bill Murray, a man you may have caught in a few films of some repute over the years.

“The Big House Ballgame is exactly the kind of big idea event that gets us fired up as a team,” Night Train Veeck said in a team press release. “We love being a part of these special moments that bring people together, surprise them a little, and give them a memory they’ll be talking about for a long time.”

Purchased by the Veeck/Murray ownership group in 2024, the Slammers have been a member of the Frontier League since 2011 and played their home games in the heart of historic downtown Joliet at Duly Health And Care Field.

As a resident of Joliet, there are few things cooler than a legendary baseball family, with firm roots in the area, and one of the most legendary actors of all time teaming up to incarcerate a large group of their fans for a few hours on a spring afternoon for such a unique event.

We all consented, of course, but it’s neat all the same.

While I always look forward to summer days at the local yard, especially those 10 AM matinees in May, the Slammers are making prison look downright enticing – at least for a day.

Only the $15 dollar general admission tickets remain available, which “will not have direct access to the field, but fans will have the opportunity to walk the historic prison grounds and view the game from a large videoboard directly below Tower Five inside the walls.”

The game is now SOLD OUT!

Yours truly was late to the party, so that’s where I’ll be, but make it out early for pre-game festivities and stay for the postgame show.

For a day, Joliet will be the epicenter of the most unique baseball being played in the world. Be there if you can.