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The Des Moines Magpies
Eric Rueda was one of that group of businessmen who attended the meeting in Cincinnati. He grew up in the small town of Newton, Iowa, roughly 30 miles east of Des Moines on the I-80. As a young man, he absolutely couldn’t play baseball for toffee. But throughout his life he had that level of unquenchable enthusiasm and unshakable love for the game that is only held by people who are truly incompetent at actually playing the thing.
In his early 20s, Eric took out a bank loan and opened a small sports store in Des Moines. His company rapidly grew, and by 1999 he employed over 500 people in stores in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. It was at a trade conference that year in Chicago that he recalled first hearing rumours about a prospective new baseball league which was looking for new franchise owners.
Eric’s business had grown through hard work and an appetite for taking risks. He jumped at the chance to establish and run the Iowa-based franchise of the new league in Des Moines. Money would be no object. He would use his wealth and business acumen to make the venture a success. He asked his young son, Will, to decide the nickname for his new baseball team. Will suggested the Magpies, because he was fascinated by a large and noisy black-billed magpie that used to regularly visit the garden of their house. Eric liked it immediately.
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