Noise Nation Staff

Noise Nation Dan

Dan is the founder of The Horn & Bell blog. A long time baseball fan without a favorite team, he followed favorite players rather than teams. Dan’s search for a favorite team was over in 2008 when the IronPigs came to town. He purchased an 18 game plan but only missed 3 games that first season and didn’t miss a single game in 2009 or 2010. While his attendance has been limited recently, Dan still follows the IronPigs via Radio and MiLB TV online broadcasts. Dan created the original OINK K sign in the outfield at Coca Cola Park.

Dan loves to follow Lehigh Valley Pro Sports teams. He regularly attends and reports on Lehigh Valley Steelhawks Arena Football and Lehigh Valley Rollergirls bouts. He greatly misses the Philly Force softball team and is excited to add Phantom’s hockey to the list of Lehigh Valley sports.

Kram209

Kram has been a club-level full season ticket holder for the IronPigs since 2009. Over the past five years, he’s also coached baseball at four different levels in the Macungie area, where he lives with his wife and two boys. As a child, he played a very small amount of baseball and even less (pond) hockey. However, he did play soccer and tennis in high school. Kram started as a Phillies fan as a very young child, but then got distracted by the Angels and the Pirates over the years. With the local addition of the IronPigs in 2008, he’s coming back around to the Phillies.

Kram writes a column for the Horn and Bell Blog called KramsKorner, detailing baseball topics as well as the Coca Cola Park issues of the day. Kram hopes he knows enough about hockey to write about it when in begins in Allentown, and that his Penguin fan status doesn’t get in the way. Kram is the main host for the NoiseNation podcast, NoiseCast. He can often be found in section 209 at Coca Cola park, and section 106 at the new PPL Arena–as long as he hasn’t been thrown out for yelling too loudly.

Desk of Decal

Decal comes from a long family line of St. Louis Cardinals baseball fans.  He began playing baseball with the big kids on the South Side of Allentown at an early age and then played 5 years at Mountainville Little League.  A lifetime highlight occurred at the age of 12 when he met and shook hands with the great Jackie Robinson at the Little League World Series in Williamsport.  Decal was a 3 sport letterman in high school but his athletic career ended prematurely when a serious injury ended his playing days forever.   He continued to remain active in other ways and even returned to his roots to coach his high school’s American Legion Baseball team for 3 years.
In addition to being passionate about baseball, he also spent several years playing bass guitar and singing in a local rock & roll band.  He is an avid music collector and is part of a music sharing network throughout the U.S. and Canada.  His knowledge of sports and music once got him invited to join a local trivia team that used to compete at a high level in tournaments throughout the area.
Decal is old enough to remember the Allentown Red Sox and going with his dad to watch them play.  The return of minor league baseball to the Lehigh Valley in 2008 has been a dream come true for Decal and he has been an IronPigs season ticket holder since the inaugural season.  Although the St. Louis Cardinals are still number one in his heart, the IronPigs have become a close second.

Cheryl Pursell

Cheryl Pursell loves baseball. She grew up as a Mets fan (think Rusty Staub, Tom Seaver, Dave Kingman, Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter), collecting baseball cards & dreaming to photograph her idols one day working for Topps, DonRuss or Fleer. She outgrew that fondness for NY after the inaugural season in Lehigh Valley and proudly calls the Iron Pigs her #1 team, and even cheers for the Phillies now. She started as a 9 game season ticket holder in 2008, and upgraded to 9 plus 18 in 2009, then 3 18’s in 2010, (4) 18’s in 2011, until finally settling on 1 seat in the same section for all 72 games in 2012.

Cheryl has been playing softball for over 40 years and was President of the Easton Women’s (slow pitch) Softball League (www.ewsl.org) from 1995-2013, retiring to concentrate on attending all the Iron Pigs games. She was the ASA (Amateur Softball Association) of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Slow Pitch Representative in District 3 (Lehigh Valley/Reading) from 1995-2015.

Cheryl is an amateur photographer (Canon 6D, 70D, 1DX) & videographer (Sony HD) but is very passionate about her hobby.
FOLLOW @cherylpursell

DiPro’s Dish

Jason is an IronPigs and baseball addict – at least he’s not afraid to admit it. It would also be true to say that DiPro dislikes writing about himself in the 3rd person – so he’ll/I’ll stop.

So, basically been a lifelong Phillies fan attending my first game in the early 70’s. Played as kid from grasshopper (ok funny) to midget (grew a little) up until Junior Legion with South Parkland Youth Association (SP these days) – we won the Jr. Legion PA State Championship in 1982. Also played for Parkland High School on both JV and some Varsity. Jason played many positions including pitcher but only tried catcher once since the equipment didn’t fit and he could simply not catch a ball with someone swinging at it. (oops – 3rd person slipped out again)

I have the honor of knowing and working with all the folks above me on this page that I consider my ‘baseball family’.  Most thanks to Dan who has allowed me the privilege of working on this blog for you who are reading this just now. Thank you…