Commissioner John “Stray” Corrado’s Introduction Speech for Steven Cornfield:
Hello again everyone. I’m John “Stray” Corrado – Commissioner of the Mid-West Baseball League & it is with great pride to be part of Steven Cornfield’s induction into the Mid-West Baseball League’s Hall of Fame.
Steven embodies the dedication to the League just as if he owned a franchise himself. He’s been with us a long time. 2007 is many moons ago, don’t you say Steven? Many long late nights together creating something that would make my job as the Mid-West Baseball League Commissioner so much easier and so less time-consuming.
This man standing before you not only started on this gig back in 2007, it put him on a real-life career path in technology. Today he works full time doing something that many moons ago was just a small project for some baseball nut – – – Me. Steven exceeded expectations back then and continues to do so today. He’s made some promises about developing a new MWBL Info Center that is more web-based with features like trade offers between clubs, and a new draft tool that will make it much easier on all the team owners as well as fellow Hall of Fame Inductee Stacy Corrado.
Steven has never been one to shy away from the work that the Mid-West Baseball League needs to succeed and grow. At times it’s hard to get him motivated after spending countless hours at his real-life job, only to come home & have E-Mails, Voice Mails, & multiple Text Messages from me. But he has never failed me yet. He’s been the straw that stirs the drink in my hand. Time and time again he comes through with exactly the vision that I have & I can’t thank him enough.
Steven truly give it all in everything he does for the Mid-West Baseball League. Perhaps it is only fitting that Steven is inducted today, not only as a Director of Technology but as a major contributor to the success of this league. Steven has made such a difference in the online – website aspects of the Mid-West Baseball League that many APBA & Fantasy Baseball people say it is the most incredible website they have ever seen for APBA or Fantasy Baseball. Let us all think on that for a moment… Career Statistics, Team Statistics for every player, team. All organized in a beautifully designed way that makes us spend hours upon hours of time looking up the history of the Stats, Drafts, Trades & so much more.
Today he continues to help the league out & has great visions for the future of the League. Steven now has 15+ years with us. Seems like so much more. It is with my honor, please welcome my friend, a true Mid-West Baseball League lifer and a 2022 inductee to the Mid-West Baseball League’s Hall of Fame – the Mid-West Baseball League Director of Technology Steven Cornfield to the stage.
John “Stray” Corrado – Commissioner of the Mid-West Baseball League
Steven Cornfield’s Speech:
Thank you, Mr. Commissioner! Truly an honor to be standing here today.
I’d also like to thank my family, for all of their encouragement during my inline hockey career (I promise this will make more sense later), and my loving wife for accepting my long days and nights in front of the glow of my computer monitors. It’s such an honor to be inducted into this exclusive club, and it’s made even more special to be here alongside the legendary Stacy Corrado. My path to the Mid-West Baseball League was definitely a little unconventional. I didn’t find the league out of a love of baseball or exceptional skill at scouting players and building teams, and I’m certainly not standing up here on account of my accomplishments on the field. Actually, it’s probably fair to say that the league found me, and in the most unlikely of places at that.
I first met Stray as a player and employee at the Inline Hockey Center, where I spent approximately all of my spare time growing up. For years I was known around the rink for scorekeeping, refereeing, hosting birthday parties, nagging people to pay their bills, playing goalie when a team was really desperate, driving the “Zamboni”, and single-handedly keeping our local Hungry Howie’s Pizza in business. It wasn’t until 2007, during my senior year of High School, that Stray gave me an opportunity to do what I was really good at. He needed a new tool for managing the Mid-West Baseball League, and having hired one developer that didn’t work out, he was looking for someone to pick up the project and see it through. At this point, I knew that I was interested in software development as a future career and had taken a few classes to get ahead in college, but the sum of my experience was some side projects that nobody but me would ever need to use. For some reason, despite my inexperience, Stray thought I was the perfect person to finish the job. To this day I don’t know what possessed Stray to take a chance on me to finish that project, but I’m so glad he did. We collaborated on ideas together at the rink and through emails and phone calls when we weren’t together, and that project turned into the Mid-West Baseball League Info Center that is still used today.
Over the next several years – remotely from school and at the rink during my summers at home – we would continue that collaboration to create the tools you all know and love (or at least tolerate). One page at a time we brought the Mid-West Baseball League Info Center and so much more to the web, not only putting all the information at your fingertips but giving Stray a lot more time to focus on the things that really make this league great. With the advances made in our technology department, the Mid-West Baseball League was able to expand to our current 28 teams and bring the world’s premier APBA baseball experience to even more dedicated managers. Over the many years since, our pace of development has certainly slowed down, but the place that the Mid-West Baseball League holds in my heart only continues to grow.
When it all started, it was clear to me how what I was doing would benefit the Mid-West Baseball League, but it wasn’t for a couple more years that I would realize just how much Stray and the Mid-West Baseball League had done for me. Aside from lifelong friendships, because that’s a given at this point, I am certain that the experience gained from the work we did together gave me a step up when starting my career as a software engineer. In fact, as that career went on and I started to interview others for the same role I had started a few short years earlier, I realized just how unique an experience I really had. I can look back now and say with absolute certainty that I would not be where I am today without Stray and the Mid-West Baseball League family. I am but one of many who leave it all on the field to make the Mid-West Baseball League so great, and I look forward to continuing that work for many years to come!
Thank you, my friends,
Steven Cornfield
