Editorial: Time to find the Fish a home

• Fighting Fish

Members of the River Falls Fighting Fish amateur baseball team, led by catcher Joe Schaffer, in foreground, wave to the crowd during this year’s River Falls Days parade. Bob Burrows photo.

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In the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” the words “If you build it, they will come,” echo through lead character Ray Kinsella’s head.

In River Falls, “they” are already here. Now it’s time to build the field.

The River Falls Fighting Fish, an amateur baseball team that plays in the St. Croix Valley Baseball League of the Wisconsin Baseball Association, recently approached the Kinnickinnic Town Board about the possibility of turning the softball field at the Town Hall into a baseball field.

The Fish franchise moved to River Falls four years ago after spending the past 56 years playing “town ball” as the Spring Valley Hawks. Today, the entire team’s roster, consisting of players ranging in age from 18 to 48, either lives in River Falls or has River Falls roots.

The team plays its home games at the high school and has gained a small, but ever- growing fan base. It’s also become a real community asset, organizing a “Strike Out Hunger” campaign for the River Falls Food Pantry, hosting clinics for youth players and marching in the River Falls Days parade.

These aren’t professional players. These are guys who bag your groceries (Seth Bugar) and do maintenance at the senior assisted living home (Greg Cheever). It’s your kids’ elementary school principal (Nate Schurman) and high school English teacher (Joe Paatalo).

It’s the new UW-River Falls head football coach (Matt Walker) and a long list of local kids who go off to college and return to River Falls each summer because this is a great place to be.

And unlike professional players, these guys aren’t asking anyone to build them a field. They are simply looking for a place to build it. The team plans to do its own fundraising and labor to get the project done.

Whether a field gets rebuilt in the town of Kinnickinnic or someplace else in the city or surrounding area, it would benefit more than just the Fighting Fish. A community ballpark, with meticulously groomed grass, a grandstand to provide shade during the day and lights to illuminate games at night, could host American Legion and youth baseball games and tournaments.

It would also serve as an illustration of what “town baseball” is all about. Friday and Saturday nights under the lights in the summer can be what football is in the fall — a time not only to watch an exciting sporting event, but also to rally alongside your neighbors and cheer on the town’s favorite team.

If it can happen in an Iowa cornfield, there’s no reason it can’t happen in River Falls.

Tags: river falls, opinion, baseball