A family reunion in Cedar Rapids for Quad Cities pitcher Steven Zobac

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kirk Zobac was a ballpark rat growing up in the late 1960s and early ‘70s on the southwest side of town.

He made tons of trips to the old Veterans Memorial Stadium to watch the Cedar Rapids Cardinals play baseball. Sometimes he paid to get in, sometimes he didn’t.

“Me and a buddy always used to try and sneak in,” Zobac said, adding their usual sneak-in place was a fence on the first-base side. “I remember the owner one game coming up to me. I got all nervous. He said ‘Hey, kid, do you want a job here?’”

That’s what Zobac got, paid to work the old manual scoreboard beyond the left-field fence. He’d change the overall runs, hits, errors, score by innings, just like you still see today at Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

His father bought him a light for his bicycle, as he rode from the ballpark late at night after games to the family home on Bowling Street SW.

“I knew every left fielder in the league,” he said with a laugh.

Thursday night saw Zobac back in Cedar Rapids for the first time in 20 years and at the newer Vets Stadium for the first time, period. And watching his son pitch for the opposing Quad Cities River Bandits.

Steven Zobac did his dad proud, working six very fine innings in the Cedar Rapids Kernels’ 1-0 win. Even if he took the unfortunate pitching loss, this was a good night for father, son and a handful of other relatives who attended the game.

Mom, Susan, remained back home in California.

“With how volatile everything is with our schedules and stuff,” Steven Zobac said Friday afternoon. “You don’t know if you’re going to get moved up, traded, moved back down. We were just hoping that this would work out to where he could come back.”

Kirk Zobac is a Cedar Rapids Jefferson grad who played baseball for a couple of years at Kirkwood Community College. He settled in California after completing physical therapy school.

He hadn’t been back to Cedar Rapids since his mother’s funeral in 2004, but there was no way he was missing this game. He flew into Davenport earlier this week and has spent his time in Iowa catching up with some family and friends, reminiscing and showing Steven around.

“I’m nervous,” Kirk said pregame Thursday.

That was somewhat surprising, considering Kirk coached Steven in baseball and his twin sister, Kacey, in softball growing up. Kirk Zobac is still a baseball coach at Valley Christian High School in San Jose.

“Hey, I’m the father of a pitcher!” he said. “He was a two-way guy in college, and now he’s just a pitcher. I’m like ‘Well, this sucks.’”

Steven Zobac played college ball at the University of California (Kacey played softball there as well), where he was an outfielder and pitcher for two years before becoming a full-time pitcher as a junior. He was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the fourth round of the 2022 MLB Draft and began his career last season, spending most of it with low-Class A Columbia, though making eight starts for Quad Cities.

He has thrown well for the River Bandits so far this season with a 2.91 earned run average in seven appearances, six starts.

“My dad was a huge hitting guy, played shortstop in college,” Steven Zobac said. “So he taught me how to hit, taught me how to play other positions and stuff. I was a catcher for a while ... The news (about being a pitcher) was always weird for him, because he was always trying to beat the pitchers. Now I’m a fricking pitcher, and he’s all over the place.”

“I believe in him,” Kirk Zobac said. “I trust him to pitch well.”

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