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Improvements Continue To St. Boni Saints Home Field
as the Host of 2016 Regional Playoffs

New fencing at St. Boni Saints’ park and the right field short porch.

PHOTO BY BRUCE JOHNSON

A different angle shows one of the largest centerfields in the CRVL.

PHOTO BY BRUCE JOHNSON

The Legend of St. Boni baseball
By Jarrod Peterson and St. Bonifacius Centennial
and Historical Society
Baseball was part of the history of St. Bonifcacius
for a long, long time.
It’s likely that local Civil War veterans brought the
game to town when they returned home in the mid1860s.
Newspaper articles record baseball games played between local neighboring towns as far back as 1877.
Newspapers from around 1900 indicated that formal
meetings were called in St. Boni to organize teams, but
there appears to have been no formal league.
It seems that most of the games were unscheduled
pick up games with sizeable side wagers.
With so much at stake, it’s not surprising that many
games did not end amicably, but instead with a chal-

lenge for a rematch, this time with impartial umpires.
It’s unclear when the first league s were formed, but
St. Boni’s participation was, at best, irregular.
With no city park, there were years when no team
could be fielded.
A century ago, the St. Boni Red Sox played at Kraemer Park, northeast of the Baptist Cementery.
In 1931, the team moved to a field on Park Ave.,
across the highway from today’s park.
Land for the current city park was bought from the
church, and a field laid out in 1937.
Home plate was in the northeast corner until 1939,
when the WPA reconfigured the field, and built a limestone grandstand into the hill in the southwest corner
of the park.
All this time, baseball was America’s pastime and

passion; it was the dream of every St. Boni boy to play
town ball, maybe even big league ball.
For these youthful dreamers, the summer of 1959
— it doesn’t get any better than this!
The Saints entered the state tournament with a 14game winning streak, but came up short, losing in the
semifinals to Shakopee.
But it did get better. In the next five years, the Saints
would win three Minnesota State Amateur Baseball
championships.
In 1961, they defeated Perham 3-0 in the title game;
in 1964 they topped Caledonia 1-0 in the title game;
and in 1965, the Saints culminated an undefeated season with a 2-1 win over Rogers.

The Watertown Red Devils rebuilt the roof of their dugout after the July tornado. They will be the co-host for the regions night games.

PHOTO BY BRUCE JOHNSON