What started as a dream nearly a decade ago, will become reality on Sunday when the Lakeville Loonatics play their first baseball game inside the newly constructed Belzer Stadium, marking a long-awaited return of Minnesota town ball to the south metro suburb.
"This started about 8 years ago, with a bunch of guys that are still playing baseball and who have kids graduating from high school starting to play townball," said Lakeville Baseball Association commissioner Thane Hathaway. "We were seeing them go out and play town ball elsewhere. We wondered, 'Why doesn't Lakeville have a town ball team?'"
That idea quickly turned into action, with the Lakeville Baseball Association approaching the City of Lakeville about creating a team and building a brand-new stadium at Grand Prairie Park, as part of a $38 million Park Bond Referendum approved by voters in 2021.
"We were able to latch onto that and helped get that past," Hathaway said. "Construction started in 2021/2022. Here we are, eight years later."
LBA raised $1.6 million to help build the new stadium, which features a massive video board in left field, a grandstand and seating for more than 220 people, a beer garden and social areas, as well as a press box.
The stadium, which remains under construction, celebrates its "soft opening" on Sunday with the Loonatics' first game, hosting Northfield.
"We now can provide baseball at a tee ball level, all the way through you fall over in the outfield and call it good," said Dave Tobias, Director of Adult Baseball for the LBA and member of the townball/stadium organizational team. "We're excited about that opportunity. We have one of the largest youth baseball associations in the metro, so it seemed a little silly not to cap it with a town ball team, which historically we've had."
Photo by Mark Freie/Audacy
Getting the team together has not been easy, but it's been the priority of player-coach and Lakeville North graduate, Devon Schewe.
"We have so much talent in Lakeville that's playing elsewhere, so bringing it back here was a cool opportunity, not only for the players, but for the community, too," Schewe said. "Once I graduated from college, I heard this was being started, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to join this squad and make it reality."
Through social media, Schewe was able to construct a team of players with Lakeville-ties and ties to Farmington, Rosemount, and surrounding south metro communities.
"With the stadium and social media, so many more people are reaching out because they know we have these amenities, which is cool. And I think from a sustainability standpoint, it's going to be huge for us in the future."
The overall fan-experience is a primary focus for the team, with $5 tickets, $5 beer, and free admission for children 12 and under.
"We're not pretending to be out there in the rural areas where it's a bar, a tavern, and a church where there's a wooden stadium," Tobias said. "We're a little bit different and we're going to grab onto being different. Our stadium isn't a typical town ball stadium, it's built for today and moving forward. I'd like to think we're setting a different standard."
So where did the Loonatics' name came from?
"We struggled to come up with what Lakeville is historically," added Hathaway. "We thought more about the state and the Loon came out of that. We wanted to couple that with fun and Loonatics came out of that. It's Minnesota fun."
Getting to Sunday's game, also took a lot of outside help.
"We couldn't have done this without Belzer, Highmark Construction, EAC Product Development Solutions, and some of our major partners like HyVee, Grey Duck, and Hasse," added Tobias. "These folks came together to get here."
Along with Lunatics games, the field will host a number of other game-only events including the Lakeville North vs Lakeville South baseball games, which historically have been played not in Lakeville due to a lack of baseball fields with lights.
The Loonatics will host their grand-opening on Sunday, July 12 as part of the Lakeville Pan-O-Prog festival with the hope of making the Loonatics' game the final Pan-O-Prog event for years to come.
