Summertime deluge no match for determined Dundas Dukes

DUNDAS, MINN. – Water provided randomly by nature is the mortal enemy of baseball at all levels. Generally, the annoyances are based on rainfall, although in selected areas, it can be a product of snowmelt.

We're one of those selected areas and, in 1965, a 27-inch snow cover in late March melted rapidly and historic floods shut down passages over the Minnesota River.

The Twins were opening the season at home against the Yankees on April 10. Starting pitcher Jim Kaat was stranded in Burnsville, along with pitcher Dick Stigman and infielders Rich Rollins and Bill Bethea.

Kaat called Paul Giel, the sports director at WCCO Radio. Giel rustled up a helicopter that delivered the players to the ballpark in two trips.

The Twins won the opener in extra innings, then won the American League pennant, and then lost the World Series in seven games to Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers.

The Twins avoided the nonsense of rain delays, postponements and the need for helicopters from 1982 to 2009, inside the confines of the Metrodome.

They have been back outdoors since 2010 and, a year ago, we were blessed with baseball's best friend: blue or starry skies. They pushed the 2023 opener back one day due to cold and there was, what, one 30-minute rain delay the rest of the season.

As for our beloved summer ritual, town-team baseball across the state, it was equally fabulous for playing games as scheduled.

There was very light snow this winter, causing optimism (at least from me) that there might be another spring and summer where teams just play ball and aren't even required to check the sky.

And then the rain started, and so did the photos on social media of ballparks flooded in numerous areas of the state. Chaska … uff da. Minnesota River waters came over the levee at Athletic Field and the water is still halfway up the grandstand.

Dundas, near Northfield and the home of the Dukes, is another of those places with the ballpark next to a river. The Cannon River twists 40 feet behind the left-field fence and 8-10 feet behind the right-field fence at Memorial Park.

There it was on Twitter: a drone photo of the infield sandbagged and water covering the outfield. I took a quick drive late Sunday morning and the water situation was much worse.

The sandbags were underwater. So was the pitching mound. The water was running through small drain vents into the grandstand, then gurgling on its way.

People came and went for a half hour. The Cannon could be seen over to the right, rushing along. A few miles away, Laird Stadium — the historic football stadium at Carleton College — was under three feet of water, minimum. You couldn't build anything much closer to a river than Carleton did this stadium next to the Cannon.

As we civilians looked at Dundas' flooded ballyard, there was agreement on this: "The Dukes might not play another game here this summer."

Mike Ludwig, who has been running the Dukes in recent years, said Dundas had received 13½ inches of rain this month by last weekend.

It also has been a soggy year for the Dukes in the standings, only 5-10 playing in the toughest Class B section in the state.

"We're kind of like the Astros in 2014, going down before we can go back up," Ludwig said. "We have good young players, mixed with older ones like me. We'll be OK, but not quite yet."

Yet, here came the real surprise: Defeated by the Cannon over the weekend after filling 1,500 sandbags to protect the infield, the Dundas volunteers went back to work.

"Tuesday the water started to recede a little, then Wednesday we got our sump pumps working, and by Thursday the water was mostly gone except for a few wet spots in the outfield," Ludwig said. "We don't have a home game until July 7, against the Plymouth Dogs. If we don't get pounded again by rain, we should be good."

How is this possible? I was a witness to a submerged ballpark next to a bursting, rapidly running river.

"We get a lot of volunteers who show up for us," Ludwig said. "I can't name 'em all — one is Jerry Williams, he's here for us all the time. And Rory Rice, he lives right down the street. He's our mechanic; not by occupation, but any machine we have, he can fix it."

Enough with baseball's wet and dastardly foe. Go Dukes. Bring on the Dogs July 7.