Fr. David Polich Black Baseball History Collection

Announcing the Fr. David Polich Black Baseball History Collection 19 August 2025 Katherine Walden Fr. David Polich was born May 14, 1950 in central Iowa, to John and Eleanor (Stejskal) Polich. He graduated from Des Moines’ Dowling High School in 1968, going on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Loras College. As a seminarian at the University of Notre Dame in the early 1970s, he earned a Master of Theology (May 1975) and worked extensively with Monsignor John Joseph “Jack” Egan’s Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry. He also worked with South Bend’s Saint Augustine Parish. He was ordained by Bishop Maurice Dingman at Des Moines’ St. John Parish on June 25, 1976. He went on to serve in a number of Iowa parishes: St. Joseph (Des Moines), St. Anthony (Des Moines), St. Michael (Harlan), Immaculate Conception (Maloy), St. Joseph (Mt. Ayr), Christ the King (Des Moines), and Holy Trinity of Southeastern Warren County (Warren County). Fr. Polich’s life-long connection to Diocese of Des Moines’ Catholic Charities began as a child serving mass for then-Executive Director Monsignor Paul Connelly, furthered by later relationships with subsequent directors, including Chuck Roth and Larry Breheny. He served on the Diocese’s Catholic Charities Board of Directors throughout the 1980s until the early 2000s. In an undated interview for the Catholic Charities, Diocese of Des Moines’ website, Fr, Polich described “‘What Catholic Charities does is certainly what the Church is about, serving the people…The Corporal Works of Mercy are not extra credit for Christians.’” After traveling to Bolivia in 2000 to further his Spanish-language skills, he served in Iowa parishes with significant Latinx populations, including Visitation Parish / Our Lady of the Americas and Guadalupe Chapel (Des Moines), St. Patrick (Perry), St. Bernard (Osceola), St. Patrick (Grand River), and St. Joseph (Mount Ayr). While at St. Patrick’s, he served on the Perry Historical Commission and successfully advocated for the church’s inclusion in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. He retired from the priesthood in June 2019 and continues to reside in Iowa. He is a life-long baseball fan and active member of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Negro Leagues Committee. His commitment to a more expansive baseball history is evidenced by the over 40 titles on Black baseball history that make up this collection. In March 1974, his letter to the editor of the Notre Dame student newspaper (“Myopia Rampant”) called for members of the Notre Dame community to respond to events beyond campus (specifically the plight of Vietnam draft evaders) with greater compassion and awareness. That letter is printed in full below: Dear Editor: As a recent Observer editorial noted, this year the members of the Notre Dame community have been rather prolific in voicing their opinions via the forum of their newspaper. Certainly we have had in recent months no lack of issues on campus to which to accress [sic, access] our attention, issues which need to be discussed and resolved. The literary masterpieces offered to us, however, generally indicate that we have developed nearsightedness that has limited our vision to the environs of the Dome, the Library, the ACC, and Dillon Hall (I say this only partly because I have the distinction of being an R.A. in Dillon.) Our problems at N.D. betray many failings large and small; but our obsessive preoccupation with them is even more ominous. Too easily do we forget that we belong to a world which stretches out beyond the gates of this university. This breastbeating was triggered by a recent newspaper article concerning a man arrested for draft evasion when he returned from Canada to attend his father’s funeral. There are thousands of others like him across the border, cut off from their homes because they stood up for their convictions before the truth about Vietnam became fashionable. If it were possible to rate our coldness and insensitivity to the suffering in this nation, then our reaction (or lack of one) to those who evaced [sic, evaded] the draft would probably take a very high place in the polls. This is true, sadly, even among people like myself who, but for the right lottery number or factor or job would now be spending our time either out of the country or in prison-assuming, or course, that we would have acted on our words when to do so would have cost something Those in exile, though, deserve and need more than individual or communal guilt trips. They need us to remember them, to pray for them, to get the doors of this country opened again for them. Somewhere in Washington there are people who can make amnesty a reality, but who won’t do so unless we apply the pressure. The power of the pen, for example, can be unleashed in more directions than merely the pages of the Observer. That pressure requires time, effort, and concern, three commodities which have been in short supply for this cause-and for quite a few others. Myopia has more extensive side effects than we’d like to believe. Peace David Polich References ● “Legacy Leader: Fr. David Polich,” Catholic Charities, Diocese of Des Moines (n.d.) ● “MAN OF GOD: Fr. David Polich to retire after over 40 years in priesthood,” Mount Ayr Record News (26 June 2019) ● “Father David Polich 2003-2013,” St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Perry, IA (n.d.) ● Kelly Mescher Collins, “Three Priests Retiring,” Catholic Mirror, Dioceses of Des Moines (17 May 2019): 10. ● 1975 Commencement Program, University of Notre Dame ● Multiple personal interviews ● David Polich, “Myopia Rampant,” Observer (29 March 1974): 8.