Jun. 28—JAMESTOWN — For the past 15 months, the only people at the old Al Boelke Baseball Complex have been construction workers.
Until this weekend.
“We got the go-ahead to have games there this weekend — so we’ll be having a jamboree,” JAYBAL President Matt Perkins said. “There’s no bracket-play or anything like that, it’s just five games of teams from across the state playing each other — teams from across the state are coming in to play teams that they don’t always see.”
The Babe Ruth Baseball jamboree will feature teams at the 13- and 14-year-old level. The 14-year-olds will play at the newly constructed Gould Family Field while the 13-year-olds will be playing their games at Jack Brown Stadium.
Gould Family Field is located at the newly renovated Al Boelke baseball complex. In the past three years, the Jamestown Parks and Recreation District has raised more than $4 million to update and renovate the Al Boelke fields.
The 14-year-old group will feature teams out of Mandan, Jamestown, Grand Forks, Bismarck and LaMoure. Teams from Bismarck, Casselton, Fargo, Grand Forks, Jamestown and Mandan will be playing in the 13-year-old games.
“We’re working hard to get everything in place for this weekend,” Perkins said. “This will be the first games, then my 11U team will be playing at the new complex on Tuesday. For the month of July there is a pretty full-slate of games scheduled over there.”
The first-ever game at Gould Field — a tilt between Jamestown and Mandan — is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. There will be four other games played at the field throughout the course of the day. Three more games will be held on Sunday beginning at 10:15 a.m.
While there will be games at the new baseball complex, this weekend will not mark the grand opening of the complex. Perkins said the predicted date for the grand opening is slated for Aug. 16. Perkins said the new complex is still looking at updating signage and growing and maintaining grass in the outfields.
That’s a pretty small list after a storm like the one sustained on June 20.
“Everything at the new complex seemed to weather the storm pretty good — some garbage can lids had blown off and some newly planted trees had to be readjusted but there wasn’t anything major at all,” Perkins said.
The same cannot be said of Jack Brown Stadium.
“Jack Brown Stadium took quite a beating,” Perkins said. “There was some outfield fence that they have since fixed and replaced, one of the support structures for the right field ivy is not in good shape, and the bull-pen backstops did not make it through.
“Parks and Rec is working hard to get everything cleaned up in their parks and keep things moving as best they can for us over at the baseball fields,” he said. “They have been working tirelessly. I want to give them a shout-out for all of the time and effort they have been putting in for us.”
Even with the recent renovations and fixes that need to be made, Perkins said he is excited for the weekend.
“It’s very relieving,” Perkins said. “I am happy that we are at this point where games will be starting. We’ve still got a long ways to go before we finish up the project — we’ve got four more fields that have to get built and some batting cages that need to be added — so it’s definitely a work in progress but I am definitely excited to see some kids out there enjoying the complex.”