by Dennis Dalman
As snow approaches, St. Joseph’s Millstream Park is already fit as a fiddle for baseball season 2024, with improvements to its playing fields having been completed last week.
The two baseball fields are now up to snuff in many ways, thanks to city funding and money granted from the Minnesota Twins Community Fund.
During a Newsleaders interview with St. Joseph Parks and Rec Director Rhonda Juell, she listed the improvements at the fields. The main field now has a configuration of bases that was moved back further into the field; the infield has been reconditioned and now includes new bases, new dugouts, dugout benches and a brand-new scoreboard.
A new fence was built around the other field in Millstream Park.
Both projects, combined, cost about $50,000, with city funding for the major share and a $15,000 grant from the Minnesota Twins. The grant was applied for last winter.
Juell noted the Twins also gave St. Joseph Parks and Rec department a grant of $2,000 to pay for all coaches this past summer. That source of funding paid for all the summer coaches: five high-school/college student coaches for baseball and T-ball; two adult coaches for soccer; and one adult coach and one high-school student coach for basketball. That grant for coaching was extremely helpful, Juell noted.
She and others are so grateful for the generosity of those who administer the Minnesota Twins Community Fund.
Last winter, a grant application for $15,000 was submitted. The Twins gave $7,000 almost immediately, then a month later they announced they would grant the rest of the request, $8,000.
Juell said the refurbished fields’ work was a relief to get done for spring/summer 2024.
“Baseball leagues are already getting ready to go,” she said. “I’ve had lots of calls and there’s plenty of interest.”
This is the new fence just installed around baseball field number-1 at Millstream Park in St. Joseph.
