Members of American Legion Post 21 presented Moorhead parks director Holly Heitkamp with a donation of $250,000 toward the campaign to build a grandstand at Matson Field. From left: Tim Haugen, Commander Paul Lahman, Scott Moen, Dennis Beckerleg, Jeff Miller, Moorhead parks director Holly Heitkamp, and Brian Rahman.
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Plans for an ambitious upgrade to Matson Field moved a giant step forward Monday when representatives of American Legion Post 21 announced their pledge of a quarter-million dollars at the Moorhead City Council meeting.
The post’s ten-year pledge is the first major gift to the Parks and Recreation Department to underwrite construction of a new grandstand and other amenities at the baseball field on the corner of 11th Street and 15th Avenue North. The total cost of the stadium improvements is estimated at $1.8 to $2 million.
According to Parks Director Holly Heitkamp, the Park Advisory Board has also earmarked $400,000 for improvements to the stadium. “The hope was that the stakeholders using those facilities could use these funds to leverage community donations and to use as matching funds when writing grants,” she said.
Raising the balance to rebuild Matson Field has fallen to a small group of baseball supporters headed by co-chairs Jeff Miller and Brian Rahman. “The Legion’s pledge is the big kick-off we needed,” Miller says. “We’re going to be going all-out for the next couple months to raise the rest.” The fund raisers are offering naming rights to the stadium itself as well as the dugouts, plaza and press box. They are also promoting individual sponsorships for seats in the new stadium, with the $1,000 pricetag payable over the next five years.
These upgrades have been a long time coming. “We started a campaign to refurbish Matson Field way back in 2007,” Miller recounts. “The plan was to raise $1.5 million. We’d raised $150,000 in private donations, and the city had contributed $150,000 … and then the Great Recession happened.
“The money we’d collected up to that point was used to install drain tile in the field and parking lot and to improve the dugouts, and we got rid of the old grandstand. But then our large donors pulled back, so that was as far as we got.”
Fifteen years came and went. Then the city’s appropriation of nearly half a million in ARPA funds for high-priority improvements to its parks revived the dream, now known as the Moorhead Baseball Stadium at Matson Field.
Miller, who serves on the Minnesota American Legion Baseball board of directors, envisions a stadium that can compete with Twin Cities ballparks in bidding for state and regional tournaments. Local Legion, adult and Babe Ruth teams will play there; he envisions hosting smaller tournaments every weekend throughout the summer.
Plans call for a 325-seat stadium to be built on a concrete casting system, with aluminum bleachers with backs in the center sections and open bleachers on both ends. The complex will include a press box behind home plate, concession stands and restrooms. Grass berms along right field and left field will accommodate spectators who bring lawn chairs. All donors’ names will be recognized in the central planner, including those who supported the original campaign in 2007 and 2008.
“Matson Field is a beautiful place,” Miller reflects, looking back on his own years of playing and coaching Legion baseball there. “It just needs to be upgraded.”
For more information on supporting the project, email Miller (slick013152@gmail.com) or call (701) 367-5915. Donations can be made online at cityofmoorhead.com/about-the-city/community-fund.
