Softball and
baseball’s favorite newspaper since 1987
Buttermakers Baseball:
Best buy in sports
By
Wally Shaver
Hadley, Minnesota –
home of the Buttermakers. Who? Now come on, you mean to tell me you haven’t
heard of the Hadley Buttermakers? This is Class C town ball at its best. And
where else in
And what the heck is
a Buttermaker? Well let me share with you one of the
great
I first became
acquainted with Hadley as a student at
Slayton is the
county seat of
The lake, and a
desire to return to my wife’s roots, brought us back to farm country eight
years ago. Now, a small cabin on the lake, a great group of friends, the Left
Field Loonies and Buttermaker Baseball draw us back
most weekends.
It wasn’t long after
the coup that the axe handles were smoothed down and turned into baseball bats
as
Back in the heyday,
Hadley was a bustling town that maxed out with 350 residents. A primary
business was the Creamery. Motorized transportation didn’t exist, leading to a
plethora of small communities five to 12 miles apart around our state, as this
was the limit of a day’s travel back in an era of horses and wagons. Naturally,
the Hadley Creamery produced a variety of dairy products used by the locals,
including the butter the Creamery churned out.
Hence, Buttermakers, and the name has endured to this day. We
decided to become season ticket holders.
Now I would imagine
most of you would think being a season ticket holder means you get to pick your
own seat. Not the case – there aren’t any. Well, a very small bleacher and a
few picnic tables. Everyone usually just brings their favorite chair and finds
a spot. I like sitting among the knuckleheads in left field – the Loonies. At
least that’s what Jim Johnson’s shirt says. And it’s not really in left field –
there’s a swamp behind the fence. We’re actually down the third base line just
past the base, under the trees.
Since there are no
seats to claim for all home games, the key incentive is you get to pick your
season ticket number – I chose 13, my hockey number. My wife took 8, but was
quickly quelled by long-time friend Tom Berg who commented, “You can’t have 8,
that’s Myron’s number!”
Myron Bennett is the
team manager, third base coach, groundskeeper, chief organizer and manager of
the Summit Bar, Hadley’s only retail enterprise. I don’t know how long he’s had
the bar, but he’s been running the team for 23 years and has never taken a
nickel in return. He even buys his own season ticket; it is number 8, also his
jersey number. That is until we showed up for the home opener, collected our
season pass, and Connie noticed Myron had given her his number 8. That’s the
kind of guy Myron is – he gave her the number off his back.
For my season ticket
of 15 home games, I paid $25. With that, I get one item of my choice each game
from the concession stand. It could be a burger, brat, steak sandwich, beer or
pop. This has got to be the best buy in all of sports. I didn’t even know that was part of the deal
my first year. I was happy to buy a burger, brat or beer for $2.25 each.
Parking is free, but don’t get to close to the field – foul balls have made for
breezy trips home in the past.
Crowds are huge at
these games – at least 80 to 150 a game. Not bad for a town of 59 – at least we
think so. Sitting among the trees with a dozen or so Left Field Loonies, we
tried to figure the actual population. It depended on whether so-and-so moved
to
There’s one
half-dead tree (no, not one of the Loonies, an ash tree) in our section. Tom
and I want to bring in a chain saw, but mayor Rick
Like says we can’t. “Still a little life left in it,” he said.
We pleaded, “Yeah
but we could leave a stump and attach a top to it for a table and have great
box seats. Could probably fetch $30 for that season ticket.”
Well it made sense
to us – might have to ponder another
Sunday, July 19 was
Fan Appreciation Day. It was the third game in three days for Hadley. The Buttermakers lost 5-3 to the Windom Pirates. Following the
game, it was a free for all. No not a bench clearing brawl, but free corn on
the cob, free watermelon, free beer and free root beer floats – even inviting
the Pirates and their fans to join in. Then they gave away a couple dozen door
prizes. Man, it doesn’t get any better than this.
Three weeks ago,
Henry, the chief cook (but not bottle washer), had a day off from the grilling.
So when concessions boss Kathy Herding asked, I volunteered Berg and myself to
step in.
Tom said, “But I
don’t grill – I’m not sure when to turn the stuff.”
I said, “It’s simple – when it looks like a
hockey puck on one side, flip it.”
Henry was back the
next game.
Hadley games are
always in the afternoons or early evening – as beautiful and well kept as this
small town ballpark is, there is no budget for lights.
Night games mean the team plays on the road.
The Twins Community Fund did grant the Buttermakers
a few thousand dollars a couple of years ago for new dugouts, fence and field
improvements which was greatly appreciated and still talked about among the
locals, many of whom willingly volunteer their time to keep this remarkable
tradition going.
While many other
teams have come and gone over the years, a century plus tradition of Buttermakers baseball continues to play out surrounded by
the corn and bean fields of
At almost every
game, you’ll have two beers – Luke Beers plays left field and his brother Ryan,
a former Gopher, is the catcher. Otherwise, it’ll cost you $2.25 for the liquid
kind, unless of course, the designated beer batter on the opposing team strikes
out. Then beer is only $1.50. Man, do we like to see that guy strike out.
It really doesn’t
get any better than this. I’ll be over with the Left Field Loonies.