St. Patrick builds up its townball yard and team

LITCHFIELD, MINN. – Back in my Prior Lake days, there were a few lazy summer Sundays when the short drive would be made to St. Patrick, an outpost located on Hwy. 13 on the way to New Prague.

The St. Patrick Irish generally were a bad team, and the park was awful. The features included a snow fence with a significant lean in front of weeds and corn.

St. Patrick mostly remains the same — the Catholic church, a small graveyard, a bar (now "The Tav") and a few houses. What is not recognizable is the ballpark and the quality of the townball team occupying it.

The ballyard has been turned into a gem, one that since 2022 has included lights — installed with a tab of more than $300,000 and done through amazing fundraising.

"We have 13 teams using the field," said Brent Goracke, St. Patrick's manager. "We have 10 youth teams and three amateur teams: our club, and Kevin Hart has an over-35 team and an over-50 team."

The ballpark is located on church property. And there are a lot of raffle tickets for the Irish sold to Sunday mass attendees.

Michael Sticha, with great loyalty to New Prague and Cedar Lake Township, was an early advocate that St. Patrick could be a special place for baseball. He's now on the nine-person board that oversees the Minnesota Baseball Association.

The Irish have gained an excellent collection of townball talent from Minnesota State Mankato, current and former. Goracke played for the Mavericks at the start of the 1990s and has assisted considerably in that connection.

St. Patrick made an upset run to the 2020 Class C final, losing to Fairmont. The state board's point system — including numbers applied to success and to college players (then and now) — moved the Irish to Class B in 2023.

That coincided with a dramatic change to the B field: Twin Cities teams had been labeled Class A for decades. A separate tournament was held for those teams in the Twin Cities since 1990.

This year, the Twin Cities teams played down to 16 teams, the traditional Class B teams played down to 16 and a 32-team, single-elimination Class B tournament incorporated both fields over the past three weekends.

St. Patrick came through as the No. 1 seed in Section 1B, by far the toughest in the state. The Irish defeated a pair of former Class A teams to reach Saturday's quarterfinals.

The challenge this time was a considerable upgrade: the Minnetonka Millers, a dynastic presence in Twin Cities baseball.

Five of the eight teams that reached the quarterfinals were traditional Class B teams. That was looked at as evidence of well-balanced competition, which proved not to be the case in this matchup.

The mighty Millers pounded three home runs, righthander Wyatt Nelson (North Dakota State) cruised on a one-hitter and Minnetonka put a 16-0 whuppin' on the Irish from the country churchyard.

The game was stopped by the 10-run rule after eight innings. Too bad it wasn't seven, since the Millers put up nine runs against a reliever in the eighth.

Joe Shallenberger, a four-time MVP of Class A tournaments, started Minnetonka's scoring with a two-run double in the third. Mike Davis, his longtime partner in crimes against pitchers, went 3-for-6, including one of the home runs that sailed from Optimist Park.

Shallenberger started with the Millers in 2001, played two seasons with the independent St. Paul Saints and returned in 2004. The Millers came into this new format with 15 Class A titles to their credit.

"One reason I decided to come back this year was when they announced the change … that we were going to have the chance to play our biggest games in these beautiful ballparks," Shallenberger said. "The amount of work these towns put into hosting this tournament is incredible."

And now fully appreciated by the Millers.

"We hosted our tournament in Dundas for 39 years, and Minnetonka came almost annually," said Bill Nelson, a longtime baseball man. "In my opinion, Joe Shallenberger is the best player I've seen in amateur baseball."

Question: "Joe, I've heard two reports on your age — 41 and 44?"

Said Shallenberger: "I'm 43. We have three kids now, 11 down to 4, and the two oldest are playing ball. So, we're busy, but I thank my wife Katie, and I thank the Millers for giving me what I need in the summer all these years … 50 games or so."

And hitting next to Davis for many of those years? "The greatest," Joe the ballplayer said.