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