Neumann Family Baseball Field

All photos of Neumann Family Baseball Field available on Flickr.

I notched my first new ballpark of 2023 with a 10-minute jaunt to Wauwatosa to watch the Wisconsin Lutheran Warriors battle the Aurora (IL) Spartans on Saturday.  Wisconsin Lutheran College is a private liberal arts college only a few minutes from my house, but most of their athletic fields are situated near the Medical College as part of the Krauss-Miller-Lutz Outdoor Athletic Complex.  The athletic complex boasts a baseball field, a softball field, a soccer field, and a football stadium - all impressive for a school with an enrollment barely over 1,000.  Keeping in mind the athlete to student ratio of the college, I went in with very low expectations, as anyone should visiting any D3 program.  I arrived around noon with coffee, snacks, and seat cushion in hand on a typical dreary Wisconsin April day, and took my seat in the 2nd row behind home plate, directly behind two WLC bench players who were charting pitches (in case anyone wants a glimpse into the quality of Midwest D3 baseball, pitchers were topping out around 80mph with their fastballs).

I parked near the closest thing resembling a main gate I could decipher.  The field seemed unnecessary complicated to access.  Your parking options are either a parkway behind the field - which is at the bottom of a hill lined with trees and a fence and therefore impossible to walk directly from car to field - or you can utilize the I-41 Park & Ride across the street.  Driving to the field also involves a roundabout, which again seemed completely unnecessary.  Once you find a place to park, there isn't even really an "entrance."  You can either walk in through the vehicle service entrance in the left field corner, or there is an unceremonious gap in the fence behind home plate, right next to the "WELCOME - THIS IS AN ALCOHOL FREE CAMPUS" sign.  Between the weather, presumed quality of play, and overall effort to get there, I'm painting a picture that might make most people give up and go home, or at the very least make them seriously doubt their life priorities.  But a ballpark tallied is a ballpark tallied, and I constantly remind myself in these types of situations that any day at the ballpark is a good day.  I was probably one of only 40 or so spectators there (plus 2 dogs), and I was literally the only person there who did not have a son or a friend on the team.  That is the thing I love most about these lower level collegiate or amateur type of games - they have a real community atmosphere and the only reason most people go to these games is because they have a vested interest in the kids playing in them.  You will hear the constant "baseball speak" uttered by parents the entire game, the kinds of phrases you might hear in little league - "Good eye" or my personal favorite "wait for your pitch" come to mind.  It kind of makes someone like me feel a little like an outsider being there not knowing any of the players, but it also makes you realize that every small team of every talent level playing in every insignificant game truly does matter to somebody.

Existential emotional blabbering aside, the nuts and bolts of the park are about on par for what you might expect at more of a high school level.  Not much more than a couple of dugouts, a simple tally scoreboard, a couple sections of metal bleachers, and chain link fence wrapping the entire field.  Most people there brought their own chairs and food and there was not much to speak of beyond the dugouts other than a makeshift batting cage and a portable toilet.  Certainly this was not as nice as the MSOE field I went to last year; however, I pleasantly surprised that there was a concessions table.  They really put their players who aren't playing in the game to work, as two of them were manning the food stand, and another was operating the scoreboard.  I got an enormous hot dog out of an Instant Pot for $3 and it paired nicely with the bag of Cheez-its I stole from my daughter's snack jar.

Wisconsin Lutheran entered the game with a 3-20 record and matched up against the #11 ranked Aurora Spartans, so I knew I was in for a treat.  Over half of their losses this year have been by double digits, including an astounding 32-8 loss in Chicago a couple of weeks ago.  This game was a more modest 13-3 loss.  I only attended the first game of the doubleheader that day, but they ended up of course dropping the second half of the twin bill as well.  They say that you see something new almost every time you go to a ballpark, and I saw two things that I had never seen before - an 8-inning regulation game, and an infield double.  Most doubleheaders at this level are 7-inning games, so when the teams came back out for the 8th I figured they were playing full 9-inning games.  But nope - with a 10-run deficit, the Warriors had seen enough and substituted another merciless inning with a team prayer circle in the outfield instead.  As for the infield double, it was a play where an Aurora batter squibbed a grounder to short, and it either went off his foot or hit a rock or something, because the ball shot up and over the fielder's head, and when the second baseman ran behind to retrieve the ball, the batter easily waltzed into second with nobody covering the base.  It very easily could have been the team's 6th error, but I suppose that is an advantage of operating your own team's scoreboard.  Jacob Ambuel went 4-5 with 2 doubles and Nico Bermeo hit his 1st homer of the season for the visiting Spartans, and Lucas Oswald gave the Warriors the early lead in the 1st with a double before the wheels came off.  Tyler Danko fell to 0-6 on the season, giving up 9 runs to just 24 batters faced.

Saturday marked the final NCAA ballpark I had yet to see in the Milwaukee metro area, which was the main reason I went.  I'd also like to make every effort to see UWM play at their new home of Franklin Field next year before we move to Minnesota.

park rankings and statistics: 

aesthetics - 1

views from park - 3

view to field - 5 (thick netting behind home plate but open down the lines)

surrounding area - 3 (freeway, hospitals, sports complex)

food variety - 7 (major points for just having food honestly)

nachos - 2 (chips and cup o' cheese)

beer - n/a

vendor price - 10

ticket price - 10 (free)

atmosphere - 4

walk to park - 1

parking price/proximity - 7 (adjacent road for free but points deducted for confusion)

concourses - 3

team shop - n/a

kids area - n/a

best food - dog

most unique stadium feature - dugouts

best jumbotron feature - n/a

best between-inning feature - n/a

field dimensions - 330/400/330

starters - Jack Fisher (AU) v. Tyler Danko (WLC)

opponent - Aurora Spartans

time of game - 2:30

attendance - I counted about 40 humans and 2 dogs

score - 13-3 L

Brewers score that day - 5-4 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 4/24/23:

Brewers 15-7; 3 v. Tigers, 3 v. Angels

Twins 12-10; 3 v. Yankees, 4 v. Royals

2023 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 3