GREEN ISLE, Minn. – The 2020 census claimed a loss of population to 522 for this burg tucked in the northeastcorner of Sibley County. That is old information, according to Joe Kreger.
“It must be over 700 by now,” Kreger said Saturday morning. “That was a field where we parked cars for the ballgame for decades. Now, it’s all houses.”
What’s the source? “Mostly people with jobs in the southwest suburbs,” he said. “A house that costs $500,000 in Eden Prairie you can build here for $300,000.”
Just be sure to do your shopping before heading home, because the options are minimal on what serves as Green Isle’s main drag.
Plus, St. Brendan Catholic Church is no longer functioning as a parish and the school building across the street no longer serves students. Which might sound like a bummer, except when Green Isle is hosting baseball games — and especially when those are part of the 101st edition of the Minnesota State Amateur baseball tournament.
That will be the case for these three late-summer weekends, with the church lot providing convenient baseball parking (even on Sundays, with no Mass), and with the school building providing a target for the mightiest blows hit to right field.
The ballpark is named “Irish Yard” and it keeps getting better. There are a half-dozen different viewing areas, a field of spectacular green, a modern scoreboard — all leading to an occasional spot among the multiple hosts required annually for the state baseball tournament.
This year the hosts are Green Isle, Jordan and Belle Plaine, and with Shakopee as an alternate location in the early going. Great ballparks all.
