Martin Schmitt Memorial Park

All photos of Martin Schmitt Memorial Park available on Flickr.

Yesterday was another unseasonably warm day which afforded me the opportunity to visit another Town Ball park, this time in the small unincorporated village of Marty.  It was a quick 12-minute jaunt down Highway 23 and County Road 8, past Grand and Mud Lakes, and farmland as far as the eye could see in all directions.  When I stopped at the intersection of Cty Rds 8 & 48, I no longer required the use of my map, as the ballpark literally unveiled itself right before me at the southeast corner.  The field faces northwest towards this corner and is unencumbered by fencing of any kind besides a chain link backstop.  I took a left towards the grassy parking area abutting the local cemetery, and gave the nice old man $5 admission.  I was pleased to see some very nice wood benches built into a gentle slope towards the field, so I left my chair in the car and settled in right behind the home dugout for the afternoon's action.

Martin Schmitt Memorial Park is home to the Pearl Lake Lakers in the Central Valley League, and it is a very charming ballfield.  Not because it has any memorable structures or physical features of any kind, but mainly because of its idyllic setting.  This is exactly the type of setting I was expecting to find when I started exploring town ball fields a couple years ago.  I've definitely been spoiled and surprised by the likes of my home Cold Spring Baseball Park and some of the other town ball parks I've been to, but for baseball at this level, all you really need to enjoy a game is a place to sit, a cold beverage, and a lively crowd.  Pearl Lake did also offer the standard small concessions building with a nice little covered area - clad in Laker Blue metal siding - which offered some respite from the sun on this hot day.  I watched an inning from this area against a barrel that was being repurposed as a table, and this was definitely the area where all the locals were gathering to talk about the team and their chances for the year, and just to shoot the breeze and gossip in general as small town folk are apt to do.  The community is what makes these games so fun and how even the smallest of places is so invested in their team, as I've said over and over again.  I've definitely been to minor league games with 10x as many people that did not have the energy as some of the amateur games I've been to with just a few dozen people, this one included.  The town ball park often serves as the local hang-out and is an important gathering place for folks to run into each other and catch up, in communities where houses might be separated by miles of pasture.  That could not be more apparent than in a place like Marty, which is no less a village than it is dot on a map with a few houses, a lakeside lodge, and a church.  One of the few houses in the area was unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) only about 30 feet behind the visiting dugout, and by the looks of the fence, that property has seen a lifetime of foul balls.  I was definitely picturing a Sandlot-type situation with a junkyard dog burying all the balls that come their way behind the tattered fence.  

But no balls ended up in their lot in this game, as many of them were hit foul into trees, or pulverized towards the county roads.  The score was 15-12 by the time I left the barnburner in the 6th inning.  It did not start off well for the Lakers, as Kimball put up an 8-spot in the first, but the home team slowly crawled back and never gave in, despite their pitching staff's complete ineptitude.  This game was on a pace to be called due to darkness and was over 2 hours long by that point, so I decided to pack it up early and get into my air conditioned car.  I can't tell you the final score since it's not up on their website, I can't tell you how many hits there were because the manual scoreboard operator only kept track of runs, and I can't even tell you anybody's name since there was no PA announcer.  But what I can tell you is there were a ton of homeruns and hit batsmen.  I counted 5 homers and the hit batter total was well into the double digits.  The combination of awful pitching and tiny park dimensions all contributed to an offensive barrage the likes of which I have never seen in town ball.  As I mentioned earlier, there was no outfield fence, but if I had to guess based on how the ball was flying, it couldn't have been much more than 300 down the lines.  The ground rules seemed to be that if a ball landed in or beyond the road on a fly it was called a home run, and if a ball hit the berm or culvert and rolled into the street, it was a ground-rule double.  And I can attest to the fact that every single ball that went past the road was retrieved by somebody and returned to the umpire, whether that be by a child, volunteer, or in some cases even a player.  The constant action and lively crowd made this one of the more enjoyable games I've been to in this league and I was glad I went.

Update: Erik and I leave on Wednesday for our Tour 2025 trip to NoCal, including a stop to see the not-called-Sacramento A's to get us back into the 30-ballpark club.  Check back for our reviews next week!

park rankings and statistics

(for purposes of amateur/town ball rankings, some categories are changed to just yes/no questions):
aesthetics - 6 (points for idyllic setting not the park itself)
views from park - 8 (open view to road and intersection)
view to field - 3 (pretty significant fence and dugout obstructions...could not see right side of infield)
surrounding area - 5 (Pearl Lake and lodge)
concessions - yes
nachos - yes
beer - yes
vendor price - 10
ticket price - 9 ($5)
atmosphere - 6
walk to park - 3
parking price/proximity - 10
concourses - 5 (bleachers built into hillside)
team shop - no

kids area -  no

best food - Von Hanson's pretzels
most unique stadium feature - no outfield fence; Cty Rds 8 & 48 serve as the outfield boundaries
scoreboard - manual

lights - no

best between-inning feature - scoreboard operator goes to concession stand every half inning to grab a number to manually add to the scoreboard inning tally

field dimensions - unknown (no fence)
teams - Kimball Express v. Pearl Lake Lakers
time of game - unknown
attendance - 75-ish
score - unknown (Kimball was up 15-12 in the 6th when I left)
Brewers score that day - 5-2 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/2/25:

Brewers 32-28, -5.5; 3 @ Reds, 3 v. Padres

Twins 31-27, -7.0; 4 @ Athletics, 3 v. Blue Jays
Athletics 23-37, -10.0; 4 v. Twins, 3 v. Orioles

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 1
Peter - 9