New Ulm Sports Central - Preserving and Sharing New Ulm Area Sports History

COURTLAND --- Under direction of the city's Rec Association, Courtland is preparing for a home opener game May 31st to mark its return to amateur town ball in the Tomahawk East League after a void of 18 years without a team. The game is also KNUJ’s play-by-play broadcast feature of the week.

The regular Tomahawk East league game at 5 p.m. will pit the new Cubs against the Searles Grizzlies. Baseball veterans will bring out the spikes again for an alumni game starting at 1 p.m. with a great number of former players indicating they will be on hand. Players participating are asked to contact Myron Fluegge at flueggemtj@hotmail.com or telephone at 507-359-2424.

History of Courtland baseball will be noted by a 70th anniversary of the 1945 Sweatshirt League team which won the league championship, regional and then reached the state tournament's semi-finals. There were 19 teams entered in Class A that year.

The 50th anniversary of the town's 1966 team will recall the accomplishments of then Tomahawk League.

The alumni game is being put together by Myron Fluegge and Marv Fiemeyer.

Fluegge has been very instrumental in putting together an eight-page "Courtland Baseball Review" which is a throw-back to the days when the Northwest Umpires brought the Umpires Review out to the games the men in blue worked. He’s provided stories, pictures and editing.

Corey Schultz will make his debut as manager of the 2015 town team which has taken on the nickname of Cubs. In the earlier years of baseball, the city's teams did not carry a nickname.

The Courtland Review contains pictures of the featured teams and now and then photos of the park plus historical information and a listing of historic dates. Rec Ass’n member Brenda Thorson assisted in gathering information.

New Ulm Sports Central's Herb Schaper provided box scores and other write-ups from the 1945 state tournament and created the digitally produced eight-page Review which is the same size as the Northwest publications were in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

NUSC's Jim Aufderheide reconstructed the 1945 team picture which was printed in the state tournament and was made available through Marv Fiemeyer and Gary Zimmermann. Fiemeyer also prepared information of the two sites which were used for town ball before the present field was built.

The enhanced photo may be the only photo print now available and is also being considered as an auction of a type to be determined.

All those attending will receive the souvenir copies of the Review.