Litchfield has an opportunity to be host to the state’s premier amateur baseball event. But first it has to improve its venue.
Several members of the Litchfield Baseball Association made their pitch to the City Council for an improvement project that would cover the grandstand area at Optimist Park, and open an opportunity to host the Minnesota Baseball Association state tournament.
A covered grandstand is a requirement of the Dassel Baseball Association, which seeks to submit a bid for the 2023 state tournament. Dassel’s leadership agreed it would partner with Litchfield on the bid with the grandstand improvement as a contingency.
“Dassel doesn’t want to bring us along as a second site without some kind of commitment that we’re going to get a roof done,” LBA board member Nick Ridgeway said.
LBA’s board of directors approved a plan for the grandstand roof in December, and members met with City Administrator David Cziok in hopes of assembling a plan that might receive City Council backing, Ridgeway explained. Dassel’s state tournament committee had asked LBA to commit by Jan. 15, which would allow time to assemble a formal bid by the April deadline.
The grandstand plan included three options in design and price, with the height of grandstand sidewalls being a key difference. LBA president Brian Jones told the council that local builder Systems West Inc. had agreed to donate the labor and equipment costs for the project. Material costs, depending on design, are estimated at between $56,810 and about $95,000.
LBA hopes for a project toward the top end of that scale, Jones said.
“Litchfield Baseball has been around for quite a number of years,” Jones told the City Coumci. “We’ve worked hand-in-hand with the city.”
Optimist Park was built and has seen constant improvement through that cooperative effort between the association and city, Jones said. Most recently, the two worked together on improving lights at the field.
“We built that park,” Jones said. “We is Litchfield Baseball and the city of Litchfield. I think we both played our parts in helping one another out.”
The 2023 State Amateur Baseball Tournament is a coveted prize, as it will be the 100th anniversary of the tournament — a bit of smalltown sports history that is sure to gain “a lot of statewide coverage,” Jones said.
The 2019 state tournament, hosted by Delano and Maple Lake, drew 16,459 fans to the two cities. It was the second-highest attendance total in 20 years, surpassed only by the 2018 attendance of 17,349, which was the highest since 1960, according to the MBA.
Litchfield played host to its first state tournament in 2016 as the third site along with primary hosts Dassel and Hutchinson. Optimist Park saw 12 Class B and C games played there, with action during all three weekends of the tournament.
Jones told the City Council the baseball association hoped to partner with the city on the grandstand project that could help bring a state tournament back to Litchfield. He said the association could commit $20,000 upfront and $5,000 for each of the next six years, but “our goal, to be honest, is to fundraise the whole amount.”
City Council members seemed generally supportive of the baseball associations efforts during the Jan. 6 meeting, but they would not commit to financial support for the grandstand roof project. Instead, Mayor Keith Johnson told the group that the City Council would be having a workshop in February, at which a long list of projects will be discussed and prioritized.
“We will certainly do the best we can to help you guys out,” Johnson said.
Council Member Vern Loch said that the baseball association’s request “changes our order” if acted upon without consideration of other projects.
“We didn’t come here to jump the line,” Ridgeway said, apologizing for the timing of the request. “But we came here when we had all of our ducks in a row.”
