Thompson Falls' baseball diamond gets cleaned up
Volunteers gathered for a field clean up project in Thompson Falls over the weekend. Weeds were pulled, the field was raked and graveled among other chores to get ready to hold games. The youth league will start April 23 and the official season starts on the 25.
Fifty three community spirited volunteers showed up at the Thompson Falls Youth League Baseball field last Sunday to prep, weed, grade, plow, smooth and generally spruce up the facility for this year’s Youth League Baseball season. The work party was followed by a barbeque and it was a perfect day.
The Clark Fork Valley Elks Lodge coordinated the work day to clean up the field, and has plans to install underground sprinklers, sod the outfield, repair the batting cage, rebuild the dug outs, install handicap accessible equipment, and upgrade the concession stand.
The first work day was scheduled for mid-march but the weather didn’t cooperate this year. The Elks have tentatively scheduled and canceled the work day two or three different times; now finally, on the 17th it was full steam ahead.
The Youth League Opening Day Party, which is being hosted by Thompson Falls this year is April 23rd where all youth league teams in Sanders County come and play to kick off the season. The younger teams play two-inning games, the older kids play four-inning games. The regular season begins on April 25th.
Last March we held a work party to clean up the field, and in April and May with a generous donation from S & S Sports we raffled a boat; in June we held a pancake breakfast and silent auction, and we’ve been applying for grants to help fund our plans. We have an enormous volunteer base to draw from, we have local contractors ready to advise and supervise us, we just lack funding for materials. We have an 11 member TFYLB “Field of Vision” committee that meets regularly, made up of seven Elk members, three YL parents, one City Councilman and two contractors.
Initially, we talked about the need to provide a safe happy place for our kids to play, but after thinking about it, it’s for every youth league player in Sanders County - they all eventually play on our field! If the much needed renovation happens, there’s no reason why we can’t finally host the five day 15 team tournament that we’ve had to turn down for 11 years due to the poor condition of the field. That’s lost revenue to our little community - we have room and restaurants to accommodate these guests, but with no field to play on, they go elsewhere.
If anyone in the community would like to donate to help this plan become a reality for the kids, we would certainly welcome that.
You can stop by or call the Elk’s Lodge at 827-7770, or contact Gary & Margaret Smallwood @ 827-7094 or Stacy Milner who is with the Youth League Parent’s organization, at 370-6578.