ST. JAMES — After a six-year hiatus, amateur baseball is back in St. James.
“It was around 2018 that amateur baseball became available here in St. James.” said Doug Jones, manager of the team that will be known as the Athletics. “We have quite a few players here who have played in the American Legion program, and they are starting to age out of that.
“Some of them aged last year, some of them aged this year. And we tried to bring amateur baseball back last year, and to make it work and move forward comfortably with a return to the Tomahawk East League. I didn't have a number of
Jones, who has spearheaded the movement to bring back amateur baseball, said a significant number of kids have dropped out of corps baseball this year.
“They didn't have a place to go.” Jones said. “And a lot of our older players, in their mid-20s and 30s, have expressed interest in coming back to St. James and playing amateur baseball here.”
There are currently 27 players on the St. James roster.
“We have the numbers and it’s important to me that the kids have a place to play, so I felt like now was a good time to try. I put money into it. And I was sad to see kids who wanted to play amateur baseball go elsewhere.”
Jones said St. James has had an A rating for many years.
“Then we switched to the Express, and there's always been baseball at all levels in town.” He said. “But numbers-wise it was tough because we had kids in college and they moved away and we didn’t really bring those kids back to St. James.”
Jones, supported by Jared Schwantz, is also a member of the St. James Youth Baseball Association.
“And now they own the field.” He said. “We've always had the finances to support amateur baseball here, but we needed to make sure we had the number of players to support it.”
Jones said most of the players on the team known as the A's are from St. James.
“But we have a few players from Mountain Lake and Madelia.” He said. “I'd say 95 percent are within the 30-mile radius that the Tomahawk East League allows. And we have some Heritage Rule players who have left but are coming back.”
Jones said he has received a lot of positive feedback from the community.
“The Athletics has been doing beanbag fundraisers specifically to raise money not only for the Athletics, but for youth baseball.” He said. “We received really good feedback on that, it was one of the biggest fundraisers we've ever done. We're looking forward to the season starting so we can see if we can get that kind of support.”
Jones said he will be happy when the first home game of the season is played there, against Lumberton on Sunday, May 12 at 5 p.m.
“And I’m proud that it happened and I’m glad that the kids were given the opportunity to be there.” He said. “And it's going to be great to see them play amateur baseball where they grew up. They're excited to be back home.”
