GEDDES — The 2010 amateur season was the last time the Geddes baseball field was used for an organized game.

Fourteen years later, and with the help of countless volunteers and donors, baseball is back in Geddes.

The idea to bring baseball back to Geddes couldn’t have happened without cleaning up the field, something Tyler Oberbroekling and his family was at the forefront of back in 2020.

“Our family’s always been into baseball so it’s kind of been in our blood,” said Oberbroekling. “I’ve always worked on the fields out there since I was probably 16, so 20 years now, and I was just kind of looking at the baseball field and thinking ‘God it looks like crap compared to what it used to be’ and just wanted to do something with it.”

So the Oberbroekling’s used $5,000 of their own funds along with raising money through sponsorships to start the renovations on the field.

“I asked my brother what we had for funds and he said ‘Well we’ve got about $5,000’ so I said if we could raise another 10, we could get a turf mound and a turf home plate on the baseball field,” Oberbroekling said. “So I asked around about what’s the best thing to do to raise money and they said to do sponsorship signs, and so Platte businesses and Geddes businesses chipped in and helped out, and by the time we knew it we had enough money to do the turf.”

Photo during the July 14 game between the Platte Killer Tomatoes and the Dimock/Emery Raptors. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)

Oberbroekling says they received roughly $25-30,000 for the initial renovations, but an additional grant they received last year helped further the renovation process.

“We got a grant last year for $100,000 so that kind of helped out a lot with getting the scoreboard and getting the new grandstand and all that stuff put in,” Oberbroekling said.

From turf to a new crows nest to a new scoreboard, the field received a complete makeover.

“We basically tilled up the whole infield and put grass in. We took a sod cutter and cut out all of the baselines and everything from first to third and put agriline down on that. We put a sprinkler system in the infield,” Oberbroekling said of all the changes made to the field. “We put a new crows nest up, a new sound system up. We put like an overhang down the first and third baselines so people can sit in lawn chairs and have shade.”

Tyler Oberbroekling’s nephew, Caden Oberbroekling, is currently on Platte-Geddes’ Legion team, and for his senior project he helped make new dugouts for the field as well.

“He’s been helping out quite a bit out there, he did the dugouts,” said Tyler Oberbroekling. “Him and my dad would do most of the agrilime work because they like running the tractors and the skid steers so we let them do their work on that.”

They also replaced the bulbs in the lights at the field, and while Oberbroekling says they aren’t the best, it’s still possible to play a night game in Geddes.

“If they wanted to have a night game out there tonight, we could,” Oberbroekling said. “Both teams have to play on the same field, it’s not like it’s an advantage to one team or the other.

With field renovations complete, the field saw its first action with the Platte/Geddes 14U junior teeners taking on Armour in a doubleheader on June 11, the Platte/Geddes Legion facing Wagner on June 29, and most recently, the Platte Killer Tomatoes amateur team taking on the Dimock/Emery Raptors on July 14.