Field of Dreams can be a Natural
First-round Senior tournament action at Union Hill's Field of Dreams.
By John Gilbert
The movie “Field of Dreams” is a classic for anyone who has ever played, watched, or heard about the game of baseball at the small town level. It rivals “The Natural” for being the most intriguing baseball movie ever made.
The Natural is more of a drama, about a fictional character who makes a magical bat out of a peculiar chunk of wood and it powers him to fame. Field of Dreams is different, more of a whimsical story about the magic of the game of baseball. It’s hard to pick out the best part of Field of Dreams, where a farmer in Iowa decides to build a ballfield out in the corn, inspired by the motto, “If you build it, they will come.” The field is built, looking like a giant emerald, and, sure enough, Shoeless Joe Jackson and a bunch of ancient ballplayers emerge out of the tall cornstalks to play on that field.
Maybe the movie is especially captivating to those who have been to a small town that really cares about its ballpark. Those of us in the…uh…”senior” category have been feeling the inspirational fire every year, playing in the Minnesota Senior Men’s Amateur Baseball League, for those over 35. This is a league started 31 years ago by a guy named Duane Gaulke, who lives down in Jordan, Minnesota, a small town off Hwy. 169 after you’ve driven through Shakopee and are headed for Belle Plaine, or Mankato. Gaulke was getting older, slowing down a bit, and he could sense the young lions coming up to force him and his equally aging contemporaries out of the game. Normally, that means they gracefully become fans, reduced to occasionally reminiscing about the good ol’ days.
So Gaulke concocted a set of rules to organize a league for players 35 and over. No young pups allowed. He declared each of nine innings would start with one out, and each at-bat would start with a 1-and-1 count. The games would be fast, less than two hours, rather than high-scoring. Batters would go up swinging instead of taking pitches, and the pitcher would pitch a complete game and still function at his real-world job come Monday. The rules worked, and the league grew. Gaulke, the everlasting commissioner, conceded only in recent years to switch to seven innings with three outs, but retaining the abbreviated count.
I was working at the Minneapolis Tribune when a fellow called me up to tell me about the league, which was going into its third season, and how it might be a good story. Heck with the story, I wanted to play. After joining the Burnsville team for that season, I started my own team — the Shoreview Hawks. Since I was coaching my sons’ teams, I recruited some athletic-looking dads to start the team. That was 27 years ago. . At the time, the teams were all in the Minnesota River Valley, and we were the only team north of Bloomington. The league proliferated, and several other competing leagues have sprung up. We’re still at it, although it’s more of a haul, splitting time between Duluth and the Twin Cities. But we only play a game or two each week, from late May until early August.
And then we have our state tournament, which is right now. It takes two weekends, with each team assured four games, and it incorporates all the teams from our league’s three divisions, plus a northwestern Minnesota league contingent that comes down for a season-ending highlight. The beauty of it is that we get to play at those small towns with their own Fields of Dreams, as we live those dreams. Or relive memories, take your pick.
The Shoreview Hawks are not going to win the championship this year. Again. We were tournament runners-up in our first three years of existence, but in recent years, our fortunes have faded. We were always competitive when we had two outstanding pitchers, which is no surprise, but one of them left to play for a team nearer to where he lives, and the other was lured away by a guy hand-picking a better team from selected players on existing teams. But we keep playing, with the same objective as always: Play the best we can, play for the love of the game, and enjoy being as competitive as possible within the scope of having good guys more than star players. Noble concepts, those, and, unfortunately, they pretty much always fall short against superior pitching, hitting and defense.
This season, we don’t win, but we invent extremely creative ways to not win. One game we rallied from a 5-1 deficit to tie the game in the last inning, only to lose 6-5 in extra innings when our outfielder’s perfect one-hop throw to the plate would have foiled a tag-up from third — except that we executed a perfect cutoff on the throw and the winning run scored. Another time we were in a 0-0 game and gave up two runs in the sixth on a shocking dropped fly ball — only to come back when our newest player, playing in his first game, got his first hit in the top of the seventh to drive in two runs for a 2-2 tie. Then we played extra innings until it was too dark to continue, and we had to settle for a tie.
We’ve pitched better as the season has progressed, played pretty good defense, but not consistently, and we’ve hit sporadically, and we certainly haven’t done all three in the same game.
For us, the tournament opened in Union Hill, a tiny town south of Jordan and west of New Prague. Somehow, our catcher, shortstop, centerfielder and third baseman all misjudged the distance from their Twin Cities homes, and failed to arrive until only a few minutes to game time. It happens, at this level, and all you can do is stall the nice lady trying to get my lineup sheet for the public address announcer. We lost 6-1 to Northfield in a game I thought we’d win.
We lost Sunday in Jordan, too, in another game I was sure we could win. This time, we walked the bases loaded in the top of the first, then on a grounder up the middle, our shortstop fielded it, stepped on second and threw to first for a double play, after which our first baseman spotted the runner trying to score from third and threw him out at the plate for a triple play. The only one I’ve ever seen or heard about in this league. But four pitchers went on to walk so many guys the Minneapolis Bombers didn’t need to get many hits to beat us 16-4. Other than our pitching, hitting and defense, we stayed right with ’em.
I feel a little bit like Charlie Brown, because we seem to lose, game after game, but I’ve never anticipated we wouldn’t win.
We played early enough both days that I could drive around that rural farmland and watch games in Veseli and Shakopee, as well. Shakopee has the newest and slickest field in the league, which figures, because it’s basically a Minneapolis suburb now, with lots of residents, and a raised sophistication. It also happens that Shakopee was undefeated all season to win their division, and they entered the tournament as heavy favorite.
Veseli is another tiny town, south of Prior Lake and east of New Prague, nestled down there near Webster and Lonsdale — which also have teams and neat ballparks. Every player on Veseli’s team comes out to work on the field, while other residents flip burgers and sell soft drinks. The Veseli field is another shrine to small-town perfection, with an American flag flying from the left-field foul post, and a Czech flag flying with equal pride from the right-field foul post. I love flags, but I’m not sure if that flag represents the Czech Republic, or the previous nation of Czechoslovakia. Doesn’t matter, actually, because Czechoslovakia is where most Veseli residents can trace their heritage. .
A new player on our team, who moved to Minnesota from out of the state, was wide-eyed when he got to Union Hill’s field. It has a short but high fence in left that’s short enough to not intrude on the barn out there. From the barn, rows of corn 7 feet high completely surround the fence as it curves from center field to right field, and beyond, on and on, all the way to Hwy. 19. The modest little grandstand is in the shade, and the concession stand is under the public address booth. The whole scene caused our newcomer to say, “This IS the field of dreams!” He couldn’t wait to snap some keepsake photos of the place.
Part of the attraction is hanging around after the game to watch the next one, and maybe compare notes and heckles with teammates and opponents. That’s part of the whole scene, as are the grilled burgers with fried onions, which taste better there than anywhere else. Especially at Union Hill, where you can choose between beef or pork sausage patties. Or, for an extra buck, you can coax them into putting one of each on the same bun.
Another treat of playing at both Jordan and Union Hill is the best shortcut between the two towns is a small highway that gets you to a little dirt road where Lyle Lambrecht lives. Lambrecht used to play in the league, and since retiring, he started messing around making bats. Now he’s turned it into an art form. There are other bat makers in Minnesota, and elsewhere, now that wood bats are becoming prominent again, but Lambrecht Bats are something special. If pressed, I’d bet the others might actually be a bit better, but every single one of Lyle’s bats has its own personality.
Lyle Lambrecht, in his studio with a few of his friends.
He gets ash, and maple, and birch from the Adirondacks, and he gets a bit of mystery wood, which, he says, is like a cross between the hardest maple and the next-hardest birch. Ash, the lightest and most common, is easiest to swing, but also easiest to break on those blasted inside curveballs. You walk into the first little building where Lyle works, and it is like an amateur baseball shrine. There are bats in all sizes, length and weight, and type of wood. If you want a bat and you heft a dozen supposedly identical bats, you will find several you prefer, and if you work at it, you can eliminate them, down to the best one or two. At $40 apiece, you are buying a work of art, personalized with your name inscribed. And it could be an implement that could help your batting average.
I’ve bought several Lambrecht Bats for the team to use, and a couple of special ones that I stash away for my own private use. My older son, Jack, plays for us now, too, and he’s a talented hitter. He didn’t know it, but I went up to Lambrecht’s last Sunday and bought him a belated birthday present, with his name inscribed on the barrel. Now he’ll hit even better.
I hope he feels the magic, because now that I think about it, getting your hands on one of those personally selected Lambrecht Bats, and carrying it onto one of those fabulous fields, is more than just special. It is like giving you the opportunity to combine both your own Field of Dreams AND The Natural.
We go back at it this weekend. The Hawks never seem to win, but we’re going to win Saturday. I’m sure of it. Or Sunday. Or maybe both. And if we don’t? Well, it’s been a heck of a season.
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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