In every corner of Minnesota, there are good stories waiting to be told of places that make our state great and people who in Walt Whitman’s words “contribute a verse” each day. That's the theme of our series “Wander & Wonder: Exploring Minnesota’s unexpected places.”
Bluffton City Field buzzes on a warm June Sunday as the Bluffton Braves get ready to play ball against the Perham Pirates. Dozens of fans settle into lawn chairs, some seek shade in the covered bleachers behind home plate. No one’s looking at their phones.
Just before the home team takes the field for the first game of a double-header, third baseman Kyle Dykhoff gathers the guys together to offer up a little pre-game gospel of small town sports.
"Another beautiful day to play baseball,” he tells his teammates as they exchange fist bumps. “Don't take them for granted. Go have some fun.”
Variations of that scene have played out for more than a century in hundreds of cities and small towns across Minnesota — generations from teenagers to men sliding into middle age, showing up at the town park to play baseball. It’s a tradition like few other places in the country.
The family and generational ties run especially deep in Bluffton, which first fielded a team in 1948. Keeping the team going is a point of community pride.
"The history that we have here stems back many years to grandpas and uncles playing and family that have done it for many years and developed that culture so that when you are here as a kid, you dream of playing for Bluffton," said Dykhoff.
At 38, he’s Bluffton’s oldest starter on this day. The shortstop next to him is 15.
"I'm currently on the third year of my one-more-year program," said Dykhoff, who coaches baseball at Wadena-Deer Creek High School and can’t resist the lure of town ball after more than two decades.
Sunday church, dinner then ‘straight to the ball field’
Ask Bluffton manager Terry Geiser when he plans to retire and the 71-year-old shrugs and says, “when it stops being fun.”
Geiser started as a bat boy and signed as a player at 17. He was inducted into the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. Four generations of Geisers have played town ball here.
“I got a chance to play with brothers, cousins, sons, a grandson,” he said. “What more can you ask?"
Geiser reminds young players they started playing baseball for fun, and they should never lose that perspective.
"We all like to win, but the most important thing is play the game the right way. That's all I ever asked is, come down here, play hard, play the game the right way, and hustle out there."
“When you get done playing ball down the road and you run into guys you played with and get together and BS about the good times we had playing baseball together, that's what I think it's all about,” Geiser said.
He won’t admit it, but he’s the guy currently keeping this team going.
His son Dustin says there’s more to baseball than showing up for games.
“My dad's out here dragging the field on a Monday morning,” he said. “Every summer, he comes here late at night and turns water on, moves sprinklers around.”
After 20 years on a wish list, the team has raised the money to install permanent irrigation on the field. A new scoreboard recently replaced the wooden scoreboard down the right field line.
Pam Hamman is part of the Dykhoff clan that’s produced generations of Bluffton baseball players.
She remembers two younger brothers coming straight from the hospital to a game when they were born.
"We go to church on Sunday in Bluffton, go home and have dinner and come straight to the ball field, she explained. “And that's what I've done for my whole 54 years of my life."
She still remembers the trauma of her dad retiring from baseball 30 years ago.
“He was 42 and when he'd say on Sundays, 'I got to quit, my legs hurt too bad' I was grown, I would cry and say, ‘No, you can't quit yet. Then we can't go to the ball games,’” Hamman recalled.
‘The last pitch I throw’
Kyle Geiser is watching the game with a cool beverage in hand. Terry is his brother. Kyle was on this team for 20 years, starting as a teenager and retiring in 2013.
"I grew up on a farm, and the one thing that we got to do was go to baseball games on Sunday,” he recalled. “So it was a big deal for me to finally get to be on that field."
The culture and family ties keep him coming back as a spectator.
I mean, it's just the greatest family activity I can think of to sit and watch a baseball game," he said.
"I think it's just kind of baseball in its rawest form," said Dustin Geiser.
At 39, he still pitches for the team.
"One of my goals is to have one of my sons catch the last pitch I throw,” he said.
He has a son entering seventh grade and he’s a catcher, “so in a couple years we'll see what happens."
Dustin Geiser is a baseball coach at New York Mills high school, and he coaches little league.
Like his dad, he talks about love of the game and camaraderie when asked how long he’ll keep playing.
“Sometimes it gets to be a little bit of a chore, but you feel like you owe it to your teammates to be here,” he said. “We're not just going to bail to go to the lake cabin, or we're not just going to bail because we didn't get enough sleep the night before. We're going to show up because these guys count on us.”
Bluffton and Perham split the double header on this day. Bluffton won the first game 5-3. Perham took the second game 2-1.
