Iowa State Representative, former Nebraska pitcher J.D. Scholten records quality start for local minor league club

It’s always been recommended to contact your local state representative for any concerns you may have in your community.

The Sioux City Explorers, a minor-league baseball team that plays in the American Association of Professional Baseball, an official Partner League of MLB, took this quite literally when they contacted Iowa State Representative J.D. Scholten.

However, they didn’t need anything related to the community. Instead, they simply needed a pitcher for Sunday night’s game against the Milwaukee Milkmen after pitching 10 arms in two games. Scholten, 44, who is in the middle of campaigning for reelection in November, was signed to the club by 3 p.m. and on the mound by 6 p.m.

The State Representative went on to pitch 6.2 innings in an 11-2 victory. He struck out two batters and let up seven hits on two earned runs.

“Part of me thought, maybe it was a joke,” Scholten said postgame about when he received the call to pitch on Sunday, via local reporter Anthony Mitchell. “But it ended up being absolutely magical.”

It’s not as if Scholten had never done this before. In fact, Scholten has a long history on the mound. He led Nebraska in ERA when he was a senior in 2002 before going to play professional baseball in 2003 in Canada. He even went on to play for the Explorers from 2004-2007.

Scholten would ultimately move away from baseball and began his work as a paralegal, where he went on to become the Democratic nominee for Iowa’s 4th congressional district in the 2018 and 2020 elections before announcing his candidacy for District 1 in the Iowa House of Representatives, where he ran and won unopposed.

Itching to get back on the mound, Scholten would move internationally and sign with the Twins Oosterhout of the Honkbal Hoofdklasse in the Netherlands in 2023. Continuing his legislative work remotely, he played six games for the Twins and recorded a 2–1 record. He finished with a 4.50 ERA to go with 31 strikeouts across 26 innings pitched.

One year later, Explorers manager Steve Montgomery was calling his phone to help his team out in a pinch. It was so last-second that Explorers director of broadcasting Dan Vaughan revealed that the official lineup card had a question mark over the starting pitcher slot.

No one knew who was going to pitch that night, not even Scholten.

Meanwhile, he was volunteering at the annual Saturday in the Park music festival roughly eight miles down the road.

“I saw I had like ten missed calls and Montgomery texting me saying ‘Call me, ASAP,’” Scholten recalled. “That turned into less than three hours later getting the starting nod and pitching. I wasn’t in top shape, but I said now or never, and when they needed me I said I’d give it my best. I don’t know what I’ve got, but I’ll give it my best.”

Scholten didn’t skip a beat during his start and provided a much-needed arm to his old ball club.

It was a bit nostalgic for him, he admitted.

“Walking through the tunnel again, I didn’t realize how much that made me start getting nervous,” Scholten said. “But once you get on the mound, it’s 60 feet 6 inches. After the first inning, I was able to relax a lot more and luckily the boys got me some runs and was able to get some innings because they were stretched thin a little bit in the bullpen.”

This isn’t the last time that Scholten will be pitching for them, either. Montgomery has already penciled him in to start for the Explorers on Thursday against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks