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

Is amateur baseball reaching a low point in a once glorious, golden existence in Minnesota? Has baseball gone so far south that it has become even less important than it was in the early 1930's? That was a time when the sport was ignored by spectators and the media? Have we reached an all-time low? And to think we thought it could never get worse than the 1960's and 1970's.
Consider some points in this editorial piece ... that's the old fashioned name for op-ed or whatever they call the newer opinion ediorials which often are camouflaged as news stories.
Recently the state board enacted a rule which we understand allows the young emerging hometown ball player to sign his first amateur contract with any team in his 30-mile radius without getting a release from his hometown. (Thirty miles? Why not make it 50?) He may have been trained through years of playground and little league ball by his "hometown" and nurtured through hundreds of caring hours from people in his community. Those folk built the diamonds, manned the concession stands and supported the great game. Rumor this involves a Gaylord player who wants to play with a friend at Green Isle.
The community can be big-team cities like Mankato or even smaller places such as Sigel and Klossner. We haven't studied the new rule to find out when the bidding can start for the promising youngsters, but sure sounds like there's a monster on the loose.
Notice that the Tomahawk League has split its 14 teams into three divisions which probably means six teams will be in the state tournament. Now we have seasons which have no meaning joined by playoffs which don't mean much more either. Be neat if all our locals ... Hanska, Searles, Essig, and New Ulm qualified.

Amateur ball gone south? Monday, May 18, will go down as a low point. There was only one small article of an amateur baseball game. Three short paragraphs mentioned the game. This is no attempt to place blame on the lack of scores and reports. In yesteryear when there were 20 or 30 write-ups of amateur games going one day without reporting each game was a shame. Amateur ball then was more important than professional baseball, professional basketball, professional golf or professional hockey. Even swimming Monday earned a quarter of a page of coverage in the Journal. Imagine: One article of one game and it didn't even have a traditional line score. A simple line score like the detailed box score has disappeared from many newspaper sports pages. Perhaps they can come back via the Internet.