Fun in the sun: Outdoor baseball Saturday in St. Paul, Minnetonka

Usually, college baseball games in Minnesota are postponed by bad weather and then move to a later date

But taking advantage of the expected temperatures in the 50s, University of Northwestern and Bethel have moved their scheduled May 9 game to 1:30 p.m. Saturday on the UNW campus in St. Paul.

The schools tried to bill it as the earliest outdoor baseball game ever played in Minnesota.

It won't be.

St. Cloud State is playing Dordt College of Iowa in a doubleheader scheduled for 11 a.m. at Veterans Field in Minnetonka.

On the St. Cloud State web site, coach Pat Dolan said, "You have to take advantage of it anytime you can play baseball outside in Minnesota during the month of February. This will be a great opportunity to get a couple of games in before we head head to Arizona for games on our spring break.

UNW's Reynolds Field has an artificial turf field. Last year, according to a release from UNW, Bethel played Wisconsin-Stout at UNW on March 9.

St. Cloud State has that beat too. Dolan said the Huskies played Wisconsin-Superior at Minnetonka on Feb. 22, 2011. "But let's put it this way, it wasn't 58 and sunny," he wrote in a e-mail.

Until it was torn down, local college teams would use the Metrodome for early-season games, in addition or instead of trips to Southern states over spring break. Northwestern and Bethel have Florida trips planned for next month, including a game between Bethel and team of Twins rookies at Fort Myers on March 14.

St. Cloud State is already 3-0 this season from a three-game trip earlier this month to Houston.

More information about the Northwestern-Bethel game, including a link to the live video, is here.

h/t St. Cloud State first baseman Zach Hoffmann, who saw a tweet about the Northwestern-Bethel game being a record-setter and begged to differ.