County League Baseball was a big deal when I was a kid. Our community was in a league that played on Sunday afternoons and included such renowned opponents as Spang, Blackberry, Bigfork, Pengilly, Swatara, Bovey, Inger, Squaw Lake and Ball Club.
We weren’t a City Team – those were the “Big Leagues.” We didn’t have uniforms. We didn’t have sponsors. To raise money for a dozen baseballs, 4 or 5 bats and a few bucks to pay an umpire out of the stands we put on dances, turned in pop bottles for deposit and dug into our own pockets.
We took care of the field ourselves. We took turns mowing grass, dragging the skin infield, repairing fencing and a small grandstand and chalking the baselines on game days. Down the lines the foul posts were about 290 feet from home plate and dead center stood at about 325 feet. Near the entrance to the diamond there was a pop stand whose dimensions allowed for one person and an old Coca Cola bench cooler filled with ice.
A gravel road about a quarter of a mile long allowed entrance to the park from Scenic Highway #8 where the Balsam Hall now stands. Our parking area was a grassy meadow surrounded by numerous large red pines and a smattering of jack pines. Most weekends we would have 50 to 75 spectators scattered in the grandstand and along the fences behind the team benches. Several teams that came to play us would stay after the games and we would have a community picnic in this idyllic spot.
I played on the “men’s team” from the time I was 10 – not because I was any good, but because we had no Little League and if you were to play that’s the only option you had. My Dad had been a mainstay on the team since the middle ‘40s.
As I grew up I got to hang around for the informal team practices and went to every game.
One hot Sunday afternoon, one of the players had had enough by about the eighth inning and I got put in to finish the game.
Even got to bat once! On subsequent Sundays I would occasionally get in for an inning or two.
One game early on we were playing the Inger team, made up primarily of Native Americans. Dave Cloud was the pitcher and a guy we knew only as Woodtick was catching.
They always conveyed their signals in Ojibwa and the battery talked back and forth while I was in the batter’s box. The catcher started to laugh. He said to me, “Watch out kid. He’s going to stick it in your ear!” Shook me a little, but got wood on the ball and managed a single between first and second! Inger was managed by a fellow named Frank Rabbit who by this time rarely played anymore but was instrumental in keeping a team going in that community.
He eventually was elected to the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame.
When I started we had no Little League in Balsam. When I turned 12 my Dad organized the first team. All were my age or younger.
There weren’t many teams close enough to play but we were able to play against Bigfork, Cloverdale and I believe we even had a game against Bovey that first year. Team members that I can recall included Dale Bonneville, Kelly McClelland, David Reinen, Kelly Schjenken, the Makinen brothers (Emil, Roger, Danny and Tommy), Ron Winkleblack, Timmy Kannas, David Garner and myself.
A Sunday ball game not only included nine innings of baseball, but a trip to an exotic part of Itasca County and hopefully a picnic afterward. The League Champion would get seeded into the Regional Class B Amateur Tourney at the end of the season and get a chance to play against “The Big Leagues” – Grand Rapids, Hibbing, Marble, Ely and Virginia.
Supposedly you had a chance to get to the Class B State Tournament, but that never happened for a County League team that I knew of. My sophomore year of high school, Balsam was the Itasca County League Champ and played Grand Rapids in our opening round. We made it respectable at 5-3, but lost to the eventual Region Representative.
A while back there was a series that aired on Fox Sports North called “Town Ball.” It presented a nostalgic look at the remarkable history of ball parks and leagues just like ours around the State of Minnesota. Greg Tulla from Ely was interviewed and appeared in the production.
Brought back so many memories of my early days of playing the game.
I eventually played high school and Legion baseball in Grand Rapids and college
ball at Mankato State University in the ‘70s. I even managed to make it to the “Big Leagues” playing with the Grand Rapids City team starting when I was in high school and continuing through my college years.
I played in four Class “B” state tournaments – two with Grand Rapids, one with Hibbing and one with Cloquet. None matched the excitement I felt as being part of the Balsam Cubs in the 1960s!
