All photos of Willmar Stingers 2026 Home Opener available on Flickr.
Megan and I attended our first Northwoods League Opening Day in the state of Minnesota this past Wednesday! After the luster of MLB Opening Day wears off, it's generally still cold and dreary and frankly a little quiet until NCAA Regionals and summer collegiate leagues start. So when you couple that with the fact that the Northwoods League historically opens their season in a holiday week when school is ending, this is always a really exciting time of year for me. We opted for Willmar over St. Cloud just due to how the schedules worked out and it was only about a 15-minute extra drive. We arrived at what we thought was right before first pitch, but it turned out that the home opener was pushed back to a 7:05pm start, so we had some time to walk around, and by walk around I mean more beer time.
The other reason we opted for Willmar over St. Cloud is it was getting increasingly more intolerable to sit in the horrendously uncomfortable seats at Joe Faber Field, so much so that we cancelled our 7-packs for this year. At Bill Taunton Stadium, we enjoyed spacious box seats in the 3rd row right behind home plate, and it was the most relaxing experience I've had at a Northwoods game in quite some time. The first batter of the game ended up being named the Miller Lite Beer Batter and he promptly struck out, so we were already two deep at 5 minutes into the game and we knew it was going to be a fun night. Later in the evening, a fan succeeded at a between innings game that for some reason won the entire stadium free beer, so between the 2 of us, we had 6 tall boys for a total of about $20. We always find it amusing when my parents go to a ballgame, and if we ask how it was, the answer inevitably starts with how little they paid for drinks, so we had a good time laughing at ourselves for doing the same thing. Other than getting up to go to the beer line and concessions area, we really didn't explore much else of the park. The stadium is set up kind of odd where the concessions and bathrooms are all up on grandstand level behind the 3rd base dugout, so once you get to your seat there is really no reason to go down the ramp to the rest of the park, which makes it a ballpark that is not super conducive to exploring or circumnavigating. I don't necessarily have any complaints about that, it's just unusual, and I kind of like the compactness and choppiness. It makes the grandstand very active with people moving around and it keeps everyone in the seating bowl area, which only helps the atmosphere. There were a few new lackluster fried food items on the menu, but otherwise nothing stood out as new or updated from our last visit three years ago. We thoroughly enjoy Willmar more than St. Cloud and are always willing to make the longer drive out there, much like we enjoyed Kenosha over Mequon when we lived in Milwaukee. It's a covered grandstand with comfortable seats and cheap beer that is very close to the seating bowl, which is all you really need on a hot summer day. To be fair, the one big check mark I will give St. Cloud over Willmar is that they have an all-you-can-eat section with $3 beers that sells individual tickets, sort of like the Duck Blind in Madison. Willmar's social areas are entirely reserved for groups only and are not accessible to the "regular" fan, which is a sad reality that should be remedied because they do have some very unique sections including a couple of on-field suites. We'll be going to a game in St. Cloud in August in this section and it is pretty much the only place I will sit there from now on.
The Stingers defeated the Minot Hot Tots by a 1-0 score in just a shade over 2 hours. The box score might imply that it was a game dominated by pitching, but the Stingers definitely could have piled it on the Tots' starter a little more, as they had multiple baserunners in just about every inning during his 4 2/3 of work. On the other hand, Willmar's starter was in fact dominant. Gannon Reidinger of Minnesota State was masterful, giving up just 1 hit with no walks and striking out 7 in 7 innings of work. He did not throw especially hard or seem to have elite movement on his pitches, but he knew what he was doing on the mound. Parker Barraza closed the door and completed the shutout with 4 Ks over the final 2.Happy Northwoods League Opening Day, and stay tuned next week for posts from my 6th Annual Tour Molly trip to a couple more Northwoods League ballparks!
STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/1/26:
Brewers 35-21, +4.5; 4 v. Giants, 3 @ Rockies
Twins 26-28, - 6.5, -2.0 WC; 3 v. White Sox, 4 v. Royals
2026 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 2
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.