MILBANK — Since 2018 the Milbank teeners, Legion, and amateur teams have played their home games on a softball field converted into a baseball field.

But the start of the 2024 baseball season marked the beginning of a new era in Milbank.

Coined “Legion Field”, the brand new baseball field sits next to Lake Farley on the northwest side of town.

Photo of Legion Field in Milbank. (Kevin Schuelke / Grant County Emergency Management Director)

The idea for the brand new field started immediately after Milbank lost its only other baseball field due to the construction of a new elementary and middle school building.

“We had a 99-year lease with the school district for our baseball field,” said Legion head coach Ron Krause. “Well the school was looking to expand our elementary school and they were either going to rebuild it or they were going to knock it down and build a brand new one.”

The Milbank school district opted to attach the new building to the high school and build right over the old Milbank baseball field.

“We really didn’t have a say in the situation,” said Krause. “They did compensate us for a similar field, and that’s kind of how the ball got rolling.”

Once the old baseball field was torn down at the end of the 2018 season, Milbank baseball didn’t skip a beat, converting a softball field into a revamped baseball field and have played there ever since.

“Our city administrator said we either play on the road for two years or we convert a field,” said Krause. “So we converted one of our softball fields into a baseball field and were still able to have baseball in Milbank.”

But the converted softball field wasn’t the end goal for the city of Milbank, as fundraising for the new field began shortly after but was bolstered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know that COVID really slowed things down on it,” said Firechiefs player/manager Brady Krause on the fundraising. “The fundraising started shortly after that new school was being built.”

Fundraising began to slow down in 2020 until the mayor of Milbank, Pat Raffety, gave the project new life to continue with the plans.

“Everyone was sitting around trying to figure out what we were going to do and that’s when mayor Pat Raffety said ‘I’ll initiate some money to get this thing rolling’,” said Ron Krause. “And he did, I think he committed about $1.2 million to the field alone.”

Photo of Legion Field in Milbank. (Kevin Schuelke / Grant County Emergency Management Director)

Ron Krause says the cost of the field was around $1.4 million. With construction beginning in July 2022, the field held its first game on May 23, 2024.

“That was our ultimate goal. We knew it was going to take time to get this field done, but with taxpayer dollars being put in play, we needed to play on it, so we hustled things along,” said Ron Krause.”

While there have been games played on Legion Field this season, the additions to the field are still ongoing, including the dugouts that Brady Krause says were finished within the last two weeks.

“It’s going in phases I’m told, so like right now it was just to get the playing surface and the ability to play on it,” said Krause. “Like the grandstand isn’t in, there’s no crows nest for the announcers, but that will be for next year.”

Along with the grandstand and crows nest, Krause says there will also be an indoor batting facility, a video board, and possibly a new scoreboard to be added for the 2025 season.

Legion Field is also part of a five-year plan to completely revamp Farley park, a multi-million dollar project that will add youth fields, a softball field, a wiffle ball field, and two soccer fields.

Photo of Legion Field in Milbank. (Kevin Schuelke / Grant County Emergency Management Director)

Despite the continued construction around the ballpark, Legion Field has seen plenty of action in its inaugural season.

While the field has already hosted its first tournament back in early June, this weekend will mark the first time in eight years since the District 1B amateur baseball tournament was played in Milbank.

“Up until this point not a lot of us guys that are playing have been on a team that hosted the district tournament, so now that we get to do it on the new field it’s going to be something,” said Brady Krause.

On top of the district tournament this season, next summer marks the 100-year anniversary of American Legion baseball, which will come full circle for the birthplace and host site for the 2025 Legion and Junior Legion State B tournaments.

“We are hosting the State B Legion and State B Junior Legion tournaments next year so we get to have those two tournaments on our new field,” said Ron Krause.

While the field isn’t completed yet, Krause says there’s a sigh of relief among the Milbank community and plenty of excitement now that the playing surface is able to handle games.

“Once we started playing on it, we had fabulous crowds. I think the people are finally seeing that we finally got to this point,” said Ron Krause. “The consensus through the whole community is that we finally got it done. We got the field, we got the fences up, and now we’re able to play on it. A lot of people drive by and see something changing everyday or every week, and I think they’re finally seeing their dollars that are being donated going to work.”