On a typical early spring day in Minnesota a group of guys gather in the back room of a local bar in Ramsey. Around the room is a collection of men ranging from young guys with a deep love of the game who are quick with a joke and even quicker with a quip about The Twins roster troubles to grizzled veterans of the amateur baseball scene who can entertain you with stories of players and managers from the past while explaining all the intricacies and details of operating a baseball league on a tight budget. This is Townball in Minnesota.
The winter of 2023-24 has been an odd one in Minnesota. It has felt more like Indiana with mild temps and very little precipitation. However, on the night the Metro Minny League gathers for its signing day meeting outside a spring snowstorm is brewing. By the time we head to the parking lot after the meeting there is already snow on all the cars and the roads are beginning to get treacherous.
Inside the room is warm. Both temperatures and community contribute to this feeling. It’s 2-for-1 drink night and everyone has a beer or a cocktail in front of them as the meeting gets rolling. Topics range from invitations to seminars on field maintenance to the Minnesota Baseball Association’s rules on roster requirements. There is planning for the section tournament and discussion of umpire availability. While it would seem to be a Metro Minny vacuum, when it comes to umpires and scheduling other leagues in the area are taken into consideration and a commissioner from Eastern Minny is present to offer their needs and support. No one in Townball is on an island. They all collaborate, share, and support each other. It’s a giant family that stretches from Roseau to Rochester.
There’s been a lot of frustration in the last year around the association’s structure, rules, and enforcement. It makes sense. With almost 300 teams around the state there are no two teams who have the same needs and challenges. Creating a system that works for all is a challenge and changes will continue to be made in an effort to provide support and opportunities to all the teams who call Minnesota Baseball Association home. But, it doesn’t lessen the bureaucracy that faces a league when they gather for a planning meeting.
Around the room there are laptops open and phones in hand to look at roster spreadsheets, balance books, and schedules. It would take a team of league secretaries to keep up with all the details and that is just not possible. So, instead, managers from each team come together, ask questions, navigate websites, and plan tournaments. All so that we can have a team to support in our hometown. THIS is Townball in Minnesota.
A month later the scenery has changed. At a fire department building in East Bethel the Eastern Minny Teams gather to discuss field maintenance and care with a representative of Reinders Inc, a field specialist and sponsor of MBA. Outside it feels like baseball weather. 70 degrees, sunny, barely a cloud in the sky. The following day I would be taking photos of the St. Paul Saints AAA team and complaining about the heat. A far cry from six inches of snow a month earlier. Spring is in the air, summer is around the corner and baseball is on everyone’s mind.
Every one of these meetings I enter is like a quiz in Minnesota geography. Around the room everyone wears a ballcap in their team’s colors and a jacket or shirt with their team’s name printed across it. In a few weeks they’ll be rivals on the field but today they share a nice breakfast spread and laugh at each other’s jokes. They discuss which team has signed new players (hint: there is a former minor leaguer making his Townball debut), who has lost players to the Northwoods League, and who is attempting to start a new team in their own town. THIS is Townball in Minnesota.
As the gathering of Eastern Minny Teams wraps up Joe Churchill of Reinders expresses his availability for support or guidance in field maintenance. I asked him for his contact info and he gave me his email address, work number, and cell number. They are listed at the end of this article. That is how available everyone is to support these teams in their efforts to create a place for baseball to thrive in Minnesota. As Joe presented his guidance for teams to ensure a safe, beautiful playing surface he often got into the weeds, pun intended, with deep dive explanations of fertilization and aeration. At times it felt like suggestions for major league clubs with recommendations of $40,000 machinery, but he kept coming back to the central premise that you work with what you have and do your best. Within budget constrictions there are so many ways to care for your field and get the most out of it.
So many of the teams in MBA are not stand alone entities. They collaborate with their municipality or local high school to care for their fields and provide entertainment. In the Metro Minny there are teams who play in municipal baseball complexes, high school facilities, a town park, and even one team that travels almost exclusively until the collegiate season ends when they can begin to host at a local college. This presents challenges when it comes to field maintenance and use as the teams are dependent on the organizations they are partnering with to provide the best possible experience. There are fields without lights, fields without irrigation, fields that have other teams using them, but there are also fields with gorgeous stands, fields with a backdrop of northern pine forests, and turf fields that feel almost professional. THIS is Townball in Minnesota.
At the end of the Metro Minny meeting in March there is a long discussion regarding section playoffs. For a number of years the Coon Rapids Cardinals have hosted the tournament with their multi-field facility where virtually all of the games could be played on a staggered schedule on one weekend. This year will be different. In an effort to spread the experience around to more teams and give the Cardinals an opportunity to do the aforementioned field maintenance and rest two teams will host this year. The Champlin Park Logators (perennial contenders for the Metro Minny title) and The Anoka Bucs will share hosting duties.
The Logators just finished a facility upgrade last season and will have a chance to show of the updates in the late summer as they host half of the tournament games. Anoka, on the other hand, has long had a high quality facility for hosting at Castle Field. It is a great opportunity to showcase the excellent facilities around the area and hopefully, with some success and our support, could encourage other municipalities to see the value of investing in their local amateur team. At the end of last season I spoke with a number of the managers in the Metro Minny about the possibility that we might see Metro Minny bid to host the MBA Championship in the future. Right now there are a couple of parks in the Metro Minny that could serve that dream. But it’s still a dream. And that’s what we have in Minnesota. A dream. A dream for amateur baseball to be a summer staple of every town, city, and community in Minnesota. And THAT is Townball in Minnesota.
Joe Churchill from Reinders can be reached in the following ways. He would love to speak with you about your field and how he can help you keep it in top shape this season. If you’d like to have his input you can reach him at 612.790.7333 or jchurchill@reinders.com
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