Eden Valley Baseball Park

All photos of Eden Valley Baseball Park available on Flickr.

I had no idea until we moved to Minnesota just how vast the Town Ball network is.  There are over 300 teams in just Minnesota alone, and new ones popping up regularly.  Being a ballpark chaser and a person who enjoys crossing things off a list, I quickly dismissed the notion of trying to make it to all of those in my lifetime, but I also wasn't going to go about visiting parks haphazardly either.  There had to be some sort of concrete goal I could achieve.  I settled on starting with all of the parks in my home county of Stearns, and by my count that is 28 ballparks.  Which is kind of staggering when you consider that the biggest city completely within Stearns County is only about 7,000 people.  I crossed off my first new field of the season last weekend in Eden Valley, which checks in at a population of roughly 1,000, and about a 20-minute drive southwest for me.  It was a beautiful drive through a chain of about a dozen lakes, and it made me wish I had a boat.  But for now it was baseball, and Molly and I were happy to spend a gorgeous afternoon together.

As I imagine many town ballparks are, Eden Valley Baseball Park was situated in a residential area.  It was a similar setup to Richmond, where there was one secured vehicular point of entry through a gate, and the entire field was ringed by a dirt road which you could park off of pretty much anywhere you wanted.  I decided not to brave parking my car directly behind the dugout like some folks did and instead opted for the grassy knoll in the right field corner.  There was a dude watching the game from his truck out there along the outfield fence, which confused me at the time since you can barely see anything from there, but by the looks of him he probably just wanted to vape in peace and avoid the $5 entry fee.  You certainly wouldn't need to watch the game from your car just to avoid purchasing food and drink and the concession stand, because just about everyone myself included brought in our own stuff anyways.  We also brought our own chairs and sat behind the 1st base fence next to a couple of other families on blankets.  So far, a common theme has emerged in the 3 town ball parks I've been to - all shockingly had electronic tally scoreboards, all had some sort of seating/viewing area built on top of a dugout, and all had a concession stand that sold cheap beer.  Like Richmond, I was humored to find that you could purchase an entire 12-pack of beer in Eden Valley for the very reasonable price of $25, which is almost as much as I paid for one beer at the Twins game on Saturday.  Eden Valley gets the nod over Richmond however, as they offered PBR as an option.  They also had honestly one of the better quality ballpark hot dogs I've ever had for only $3, and plenty of chips and candy to keep my daughter happy.  There were a couple small sections of bleachers behind home plate, but we were more than content to goof around in our lawn chairs and chase down every foul ball that didn't land in a neighboring backyard.  The most unique part of this park was that it appeared to double as the local high school football stadium.  The outfield fence made a perfect rectangle for the boundary, and there was a long section of bleachers with a press box in right-center that clearly would only be used for football games.  One of the sets of goal posts actually was in foul territory near us, and everyone cheered when a batter fouled a ball right through the wickets on a bounce.  Beyond the field goal incident, it was a very energetic crowd that was quite engaged in the game, which had more offense and extra base hits than I've seen at just about any other town ball game.  It was quick-paced with everybody up there hacking early in the count, and I'm also pretty sure both pitchers tossed complete games, all of which contributed to the fastest 9-inning ballgame I've ever seen at about 1:40.  I think it was a 4-0 victory by the Hawks, but the scoreboard had some bulbs burned out and the league does not post box scores so...maybe?  Given the questionable defense and pitching of these games, I feel like the odds of St Augusta actually getting shut out were low, but I guess we'll never know.

I was nervous when Molly told me she wanted to tag along to this game.  I had to explain to her that this was going to be a no-frills experience - no mascots, no team store, no kids area, no fancy seats, I didn't even know that there would be a concession stand until we got there.  But she was eager to go, and I'm glad for it, because we had a great time together (the brisk game certainly helped with that).  We'll see how many of the remaining 25 Stearns County parks she wants to go to with me, but for now, it just got me all the more excited for our daddy-daughter trip to Sioux Falls that is only a short couple of weeks away.

park rankings and statistics

(for purposes of amateur/town ball rankings, some categories are changed to just yes/no questions):
aesthetics - 3
views from park - 2 (trees)
view to field - 9 (right along fence)
surrounding area - 2 (looked like a sleepy town)
concessions - yes
nachos - no
beer - yes
vendor price - 10
ticket price - 5 (now that I understand paying for Town Ball is more the norm than free in Cold Spring)
atmosphere - 5
walk to park - 2
parking price/proximity - 10 (could literally park in foul territory)
concourses - 2
team shop - no

best food - one of the best ballpark hot dogs I've ever had
most unique stadium feature - field doubles as high school football field
scoreboard - yes

lights - yes
best between-inning feature - opposing manager leaving during game to get chaw from his car

field dimensions - 320/408/320
teams - Eden Valley Hawks v. St. Augusta Gussies
time of game - 1:40-ish
attendance - 50-ish
score - 4-0 W 
Brewers score that day - 9-4 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 5/28/24:

Brewers 31-22, +4.5; 4 v. Cubs, 3 v. White Sox, 3 @ Phillies, 3 @ Tigers

Twins 29-24, -6.5; 4 v. Royals, 3 @ Astros, 3 @ Yankees, 3 @ Pirates

Orioles 34-18, -1.5; 3 v. Red Sox, 3 v. Rays, 4 @ Blue Jays, 4 @ Rays

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 2

Peter - 9

First Town Ball Season as a Minnesota Resident

All photos of Cold Spring Rockies & Springers Home Openers available on Flickr.

It's coming up on 9 months since we moved to Middle of Nowhere, Minnesota, and to be honest, I'm still adjusting, and I generally still miss city life.  But one of the big items in the pro column of living here is being able to see free ball 8 blocks from my house every summer.  The Minnesota Town Ball season has been starting up the last few weeks, and I've gotten to the home openers of both of our local teams, the Rockies and the Springers.  Both games were 7:30pm weeknight games, which are selfishly super easy for me to bike 5 minutes to after I help put the kids to bed - as I'm sure many of the players do as well.

The Rockies are a Class C team in the Central Valley League, and the Springers are a Class B team in the Sauk Valley League.  I'm not yet familiar with all the nuances and regulations of town ball and how classes and rosters are determined, but I can only assume that Class C teams are generally "less talented" than Class B, and that really showed itself in the two games I attended.  The fact that both teams played the same team, the Luxemburg Brewers, certainly didn't help in my understanding of Town Ball league structure.  And I was even further confounded with how the Brewers were allowed to basically pirate the Milwaukee Brewers logo for their caps.  I tried to not let my triple-confusion spoil either of my evenings at the ballpark.  Nothing new of note at the ol' ballyard this year, but there have been renderings displayed at the park for the past couple of years depicting a new year-round batting cage building that is supposed to be built, to service not only the players but the community as well.  I saw no evidence of this building under construction in any fashion, but I remain fortunate that I live so close to one of the finest ballparks in all of the Minnesota Baseball Association.

The Brewers laid the wood to the Rockies last week Friday, and the Springers returned the favor to them on Wednesday with a 12-0 spanking that was called after 6 innings due to a combination of rain and embarrassment.  It's not easy to even find game schedule information for town ball, let alone box scores, so I'm not going to even attempt to dissect the games or the players.  And that's honestly kind of the point of town ball.  It doesn't matter who wins or loses, or how many times the pitcher didn't cover 1st base on a ground ball, or how many errors the fat immobile third baseman made, or how many calls the one umpire blew.  It's about being out in the community and supporting the local 9, and I'm excited to be a part of that now as a Cold Spring resident.  And apparently, I also need to be a Luxemburg fan, since we wear the same caps.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 5/17/24:

Brewers 26-17, +2.0; 3 @ Astros, 3 @ Marlins, 3 @ Red Sox

Twins 24-19, -2.5; 3 @ Guardians, 3 @ Nationals, 3 v. Rangers

Orioles 27-14, -1.0; 3 v. Mariners, 3 @ Cardinals, 4 @ White Sox

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 7

Return to St. Paul

All photos of CHS Field available on Flickr.

My wife being out of town this past weekend presented a great opportunity to take the kids to their first ballgame of the season.  I decided on a St. Paul Saints game, which was their first visit to CHS Field, and my first visit since its inaugural season of 2015.  A lot has changed in those 9 years, for both myself and the Saints.  Megan and I were newly engaged at the time and living each day as it came to us.  Erik and his not-yet-wife were still living in Minneapolis.  All three of us had the free time to do something absurd like a Twin Cities doubleheader on the train.  And the Saints were still an independent league team in the American Association.  On Saturday's visit, there were now children involved - my two hyperactive children who spent most of the game eating and rolling down the berm, and the Saints as the "child" to its new parent club, the Minnesota Twins, dating back to the MiLB reorganization of 2021.  

We arrived just before a 1:07 first pitch of the first game of a doubleheader, and after a obligatory team store visit and wolfing down some dogs, made our way to our seats on the 1st base line.  My first natural inclination whenever I return to a park after a long layaway is to scan for anything that might have changed since my last visit.  By and large, the ballpark seems almost untouched, and frankly I don't think anything needed to be.  This was formerly my favorite indy park, and I'd still put it in the top 3 of all minor league parks now that it is a AAA affiliate.  It's just a really unique and thoughtfully designed ballpark that you can tell was not designed by a typical stadium architect, but still took the care to research what makes a good ballpark.  It's also very simple, well-organized yet not rigid, and really embraces its site, all of which are things you can ask any architect and they will say are crucial to a great outdoor space.  It feels like an extension of the city when you are inside and it feels like a ballpark that was built specifically for this one site in St. Paul, as opposed to so many parks that are plopped in a green site somewhere with no context.  The one notable addition to CHS Field since my last visit is the City of Baseball Museum near the Craft Beer Corner in left field (which is now operated by Summit Brewing).  This museum opened in 2019 as a repository to showcase the long history of baseball in Saint Paul, and also purposely doubling as a new group space for the stadium on its roof.  Unfortunately, I did not get to go inside with the kids in tow, but my office is only about 8 blocks from the ballpark, so I'm sure I will have many more opportunities to walk through it.  You don't see that many museums inside of ballparks, but when they're done right, they offer a unique opportunity and great use of space for a function that probably wouldn't generate a lot of revenue if it was a standalone building.

We were in our seats for about 3 innings and then meandered around the park, as one does at a minor league game.  We hit up the kids area for awhile (of course), and then settled in to the left field berm for the remainder of the 7-inning affair.  The kids did a great job and I actually got to watch most of the game, which the Saints dropped to the Rochester Red Wings by a 3-2 score.  They would go on to drop Game 2 of the twin bill after we left as well.  Both the Twins and the Red Wings parent Nationals are about middle-of-the-pack in their organization farm system rankings, but it seems like the teams are moving in opposite direction.  The Nats are in a rebuild and will likely continue to climb in terms of farm system depth, and their #2 overall prospect James Wood started in CF with an RBI single on the afternoon.  The Twins, on the other hand, have a lot of their better prospects either currently on the big league roster or in the lower levels at the moment.  Their highest ranked prospect in AAA is SS Brooks Lee, and he would probably also be in the bigs by now if he wasn't injured.  Louie Varland and Jhoan Duran are both in St. Paul right now on rehab assignments and both pitched in this game.  Varland got the start and gave up 1 run over 5, and Duran tossed a perfect 6th inning and has since been activated.  It was a pretty quick and uneventful game until the final inning.  Drew Millas homered and James Wood singled in another run in the top of the 7th for the Wings to break the tie at 3-1, and the Saints got one back in the bottom half with an RBI double by Alex Isola, but ultimately it was not enough for the victory.  As an aside, I got to see the Automatic Ball-Strike System (ABS) live in action for the first time in a game, and it will be long overdue when it is inevitably implemented by MLB.

I had an absolute blast with Molly and Elliot and I can't wait to take them back to another game, hopefully with Megan along next time so that I actually have a free hand to hold a frosty beverage.  The Twins are frankly a waste of money with small children unless you have a lot of help, and the St. Cloud Rox park is a bit too small and cramped for running around, but the Saints were a perfect middle ground.

updated park rankings and statistics

(see original post from 6/8/15):

aesthetics - 9
views from park - improves to 7 (nothing has changed, just not sure why I ever had it that low - great view from outfield to the city)
view to field - 10
surrounding area - improves to 4
food variety - 10
nachos - 8
beer - 9
vendor price - 4
ticket price - improves to 4
atmosphere - 8
walk to park - 2
parking price/proximity - decreases to 3 ($10 for a shady lot under the freeway)
concourses - 10
team shop - 8

kids area - 7 (new category - great location in the ballpark)

best food - not sure if "The Dog Park" still exists but sausages are still best food
most unique stadium feature - use of materials, zero-waste features
best jumbotron feature - Pet of the Game

best between-inning feature - ball pig!

field dimensions - 330/405/320

starters - Thaddeus Ward (ROC) v. Louie Varland (STP)
opponent - Rochester Red Wings
time of game - 2:06 (game 1 of doubleheader)
attendance - 4334
score - 3-2 L (7)

Brewers score that day - 15-3 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 5/3/24:

Brewers 19-11, +1.0; 3 @ Cubs, 3 @ Royals, 4 v. Cardinals, 3 v. Pirates

Twins 17-13, -2.5; 3 v. Red Sox, 4 v. Mariners, 3 @ Blue Jays, 3 v. Yankees

Orioles 20-11, +1.0; 3 @ Reds, 2 @ Nationals, 3 v. Diamondbacks, 3 v. Blue Jays

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1

Peter - 5