Tour Molly 2025: Newman Outdoor Field

All photos of Fargo, Moorhead, and Newman Outdoor Field available on Flickr.

The 2025 installment of Tour Molly took us to the 4th different state of our travels in 5 years: North Dakota.  In doing so, we logged Molly's 23rd ballpark visited and the 35th state I've seen a ballgame in.  More specifically, we were in Fargo, and it was about a 2 1/2 hour drive northwest from Cold Spring.  It's a very odd feeling driving that direction on I-94, almost like you're driving off the face of the earth into the great unknown.  Maybe it's because it's the furthest west I've ever driven on this particular interstate, or maybe it's because the Great Plains is so vast and desolate, or both.  But even a state that has fewer people than Milwaukee County has breweries, and we started our weekend at one of North Dakota's best - Drekker Brewing Company.  The brewery has become so big and popular that they opened an adjacent food & entertainment wonderland called "Brewhalla" a couple years ago, and that's where I took Molly for lunch.  This eclectic venue has a food hall, bar serving of course Drekker beer, and a market on the first floor; seating, pinball, some event spaces, and another bar on the 2nd floor; and a hotel on the 3rd and 4th floors, with a dramatic atrium piercing the industrial building all the way down from the roof to create a rectangular donut-shaped building.  This was probably my favorite non-baseball place we went the entire weekend and we spent a good hour exploring here.  Molly got to try pinball for the first time, and I got to pick up some beer to bring home, so it was a win-win.  I feel like every state and major city has that one brewery where your loved ones make you bring beer home if you're visiting out of town, and Drekker is definitely that place in Fargo, as evidenced by the haul my sister-in-law requested.  After Brewhalla, Molly burned off some energy at the local trampoline park and in the hotel pool before we ended the day at Space Aliens for dinner, which is a small chain restaurant featuring a retro space theme, arcade, and for some reason barbecue.  Molly and I have now been to 2 of its 3 locations, so we have no choice but to go to Bismarck on a future daddy-daughter trip to complete the tour.

Just as my trips with Erik have slowly become formulaic over time, so too have my trips with Molly.  There are a few tried-and-true activities and must-do's on our trips, and we hit a couple of those on Friday in the brewery and the pool.  Another must is a hotel with continental breakfast.  I'm pretty sure our vacations could just consist of driving 3 minutes to the local Cold Spring hotel to swim and eat breakfast in bed all day, and that would more than satiate my daughter (not surprisingly at all, Erik has the same travel priorities as a 7-year old).  Molly was mesmerized by this pancake conveyor belt contraption at our hotel that looked like it was from the 1950s and they were clearly cobbling together with eBay parts.  Those pancakes and a good morning swim would be the foundation of an extremely busy day we had planned before the 6pm ballgame.  We hit the West Acres Mall, Red River Zoo, Swing Barrel Brewing in Moorhead, and the Fargo Air Museum all in the span of about 6 hours.  Molly was visibly tired by midday, but she was a trooper and we had a blast at every stop, with the exception of the Air Museum which was kind of a dud.  To anybody considering a trip to Fargo, unless you were in the military or are an aviation buff, don't waste the money.  We were having so much fun that I totally forgot about the Roger Maris Museum in town, but I wouldn't have changed a thing that we did.  It was nice to have a bunch of activities that didn't take more than an hour and were able to hold a child's attention.  The zoo in particular was great because it was so small with so many winding paths that it really kept Molly engaged and not complaining about walking like kids that age usually do.  

Our last stop before the ballgame was purposely the Air Museum because it was just down the street from the ballpark, and by the time we got there around 4:45, there were already lines around the block for people trying to snag one of the giveaway jerseys to the first 1,000 fans.  I've never been one to refuse anything "free," but by the looks of the lines I was more concerned about just getting a ticket than the jersey.  We paid $3 to park across the street from the right field gate and hustled all the way to the main entrance to thankfully snag two GA seats for $11 apiece.  I then made poor Molly walk all the way back to the much shorter right field line, but she kept herself occupied with her newly acquired binoculars from the zoo.  We did end up getting the giveaway jerseys, and Molly donned her men's XL just long enough for a funny picture before shedding it.  The kids area was conveniently right inside the RF gate, and doubly convenient right next to the visiting bullpen, so we killed time here for a bit before grabbing some food and settling into the bleachers.

Newman Outdoor Field has hosted the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks of the independent American Association for their entire 30-year existence, and also hosts the North Dakota State Bison D-1 ball team.  The exterior of this stadium shares a look that several other minor/indy parks of this era seem to share as well (Joliet, Schaumburg, Durham, and Akron to name a few), in that it has a massive front entrance with a grand stair to ascend to the main level.  The imposing masonry walls and entrance are definitely what stick out about this park, and is a style for this size of ballpark that you don't often see anymore in newer parks.  The late '90s/early '00s were all about the retro craze with elegant brick and stone work, designed to look timeless before a game was even played there, whereas two-deck parks today tend to be much more open and inward focused.  Fargo's generation of ballpark - neither old nor new - should age pretty well, and it was a treat to be at a place that had an appealing and memorable exterior.  I think the fact that this park also serves NDSU and is literally on their campus also helps explain and justify the aesthetic choice.  The brick and stone colors seem to match nearby buildings, as collegiate architecture often does, and the grand sets of stairs scream old campus building.  The brick archways that were meant to look like infilled windows were a very nice touch and helped ground the tall walls and give them some human scale. I also loved the fountains and mature trees surrounding the building that really softened the hard edges.  What I didn't like about the exterior design was more from a practicality side, in that you have to walk up the stairs to buy a ticket, and then descend to wait in line, then re-ascend the stairs to gain entry.  Seems like they could have a ticket window at ground level to help alleviate that awkward issue and still allow you to have your grand entry stair.  The gate we entered in right field was at grade, and the stairs were on the inside, so that was kind of a cool way to enter the stadium.  It creates kind of a build-up to the panorama of the field once you get to the top - Beloit is a recent example that comes to mind that utilizes this technique.  Once you're on concourse level, it's not unlike any other modern concourse with an open view to the field.  It was a bit cramped, but that could have just been from the near sellout.  This park does not have outfield access, which was not uncommon for parks this old at this level, but is always a big letdown.  My favorite part of the interior was the press/club level, done in a simple metal panel.  Nothing fancy about this material - you might even say it's cheap - but when contrasted with the massive masonry exterior, I liked how it softened the view inside.  Doing the inside in brick as well would have been way too intimidating and unnecessary.  Our seats were in a lone section of GA bleachers in right field, but otherwise your run-of-the-mill 20 rows of seats from roughly dugout to dugout.  The football Fargodome and a practice facility can be seen beyond the outfield wall, which is packed to the gills with advertising as it should be.  What Newman Outdoor Field lacks in originality on the inside, it more than makes up for on the outside, and the two aspects work well in concert together, especially when coupled with the on-campus site.  Overall this was a very pleasant stadium, and one of the better ones in the AA.  I've now been to 9 of the 12 parks in this league and have my sights set on a trip to Winnipeg sometime in the next few years.

Molly got her second wind after scarfing down a bag of cotton candy and getting her picture taken with Hawkeye, but the energy was short-lived, and we only made it through 6 innings.  Fargo-Moorhead was winning 3-2 when we left, and the box score tells me that they held on for a 5-2 victory.  The visiting DockHounds started off with a bang by the first two batters parking the first two pitches of the game beyond the left field wall for no-doubt homers.  Kolby Kiser would settle down and those would be the only runs he allowed the rest of the way, and he actually earned the win.  Dillon Thomas and Alex Olund homered for the home team over the very short fences down the lines.  No names jumped out at me on either team as an "oh yeah I remember him, he's still playing ball?"  Although the starting pitcher for Lake Country is named Brett Conine, and he's only a year older than Griffin Conine, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's part of the MLB Conine family.

I think you can guess the two things we did at the hotel before we left to head back home Sunday morning.  It was another phenomenal trip, and I'm so glad that Molly is still as excited as I am to go on these adventures with me, and that she even indulges me with a little baseball.  Sioux Falls has still been my favorite city we've visited so far, but we always have a blast no matter where we are.  I'm already scouring the schedules to see what the next town ball game is we can go to together, and I'm already looking forward to Tour Molly 2026.

park rankings and statistics:

aesthetics - 8
views from park - 5 (Fargodome)
view to field - 8
surrounding area - 5 (NDSU)
food variety - 4
nachos - 7 (bonus points for nacho helmet)
beer - 10 (they sell Drekker, Hamms, and 2/$6 Pabst Light...if that doesn't get you a 10 I don't know what does)
vendor price - 9 (don't see $3 dogs that much anymore)
ticket price - 9
atmosphere - 7
walk to park - 5 (pretty walk around the building)
parking price/proximity - 9 ($3 across the street, easy in/out)
concourses - 6 (a bit cramped, points deducted for no outfield access)
team shop - 7

kids area - 8 (bullpen adjacent...would be a 10 if there was a beer stand nearby)

best food - tacos
most unique stadium feature - main entry/exterior
best jumbotron feature - ads for Fargo Blues Festival

best between-inning feature - giant inflatable bowling

field dimensions - 318/408/314

starters - Brett Conine (LC) v. Kolby Kiser (FM)
opponent - Lake Country DockHounds
time of game - 2:22
attendance - 3875
score - 5-2 W

Brewers score that day - 8-5 L

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/16/25:

Brewers 39-34, -5.5; 3 @ Cubs, 3 @ Twins

Twins 36-35, -9.0; 3 @ Reds, 3 v. Brewers
Athletics 29-44, -13.0; 4 v. Astros, 3 v. Guardians

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 6
Peter - 15