For this southern Minnesota man, foul balls make for a ‘field of nightmares’

BLOOMING PRAIRIE – In this city of 2,000, where the high school sports team is called the Awesome Blossoms, playing baseball near cornfields seems like a “Field of Dreams” for youth.

But the situation instead has drawn comparisons to “The Sandlot,” the cult 1993 movie in which neighborhood kids continuously lose their baseballs to a large dog they nickname “the Beast.”

The “beast,” according to disgruntled local baseball parents, is a nearby property owner who, fed up over kids entering his property, has kept dozens of baseballs that have landed in his yard over the past year.

And now their dispute has gone viral.

Social media video showing parents arguing with homeowner Jon Peterson blew up late last month as Peterson is accused of hoarding the balls hit into his yard during every game at the city’s baseball fields across the street.

To recoup the cost of some of those balls — up to 10 a game are lost there, and each costs about $10 — local baseball organizers created a fundraiser that they say has generated hundreds of baseballs for the town.

“We’re a community who loves baseball,” said Kelly LaMotte, whose June 30 video showed clips of Peterson and his father, Tom, refusing to give baseballs back to kids and parents during games.

The video also contained some of the parents’ reactions, from profanity to a middle finger as the Petersons stand their ground.

The Petersons have not responded to requests for comment. But in an email sent last month to school officials and local recreation volunteers, Peterson accused them of routinely trespassing on his property.

“All events involved are utilizing the district’s fields bordering our private property,” Peterson wrote in the email. “It is the sole responsibility of the district to prevent the almost daily trespassing from happening.”

Mike Studer, president of the Blooming Prairie Recreation Association, also declined to comment.

LaMotte, whose son plays baseball for Blooming Prairie and is on the 15U summer team, said she was inspired to create the video showing what baseball parents have to deal with after local recreation officials began asking for baseball donations.

She was surprised her video went viral, but she knows many parents and teens who have been frustrated with the Petersons’ decision to keep the stray balls. Parents and coaches have tried to talk with the Petersons, but there’s been no explanation why the foul balls aren’t being returned.

“I was just like, ‘I’m just going to put this together with some funny music and show people what we have to deal with when we’re playing baseball because it’s kind of ridiculous, on a mom side,’ ” she said.

The baseball community’s issues with the Petersons started last fall, when they began refusing to return any balls knocked into their yard.

The high school’s two baseball fields run close to Steele County Road 46 with home plate facing southwest, so any ball inadvertently hit too far to the right has a good chance of going into the Petersons’ expansive yard, and even by their home.

The Petersons’ issues appear to run deeper than a few baseballs. Parents speculate the trouble over their property started several years back when Blooming Prairie Public Schools bought land just west of Jon Peterson’s home.

The district converted that land into sports fields for baseball and soccer, but the soccer kids sometimes wandered into the Peterson yard.

The Petersons have since fenced off their property near the fields and have posted no-trespassing signs alongside the highway.

In April, the Steele County Board made it illegal to park on the highway that separates the Petersons from the high school and its fields. Tom Peterson spearheaded efforts over the past year to persuade school and county officials to ban parking, arguing the road is far too busy and that parking on the shoulder is a safety hazard that could prove fatal.

LaMotte said she could understand the Petersons getting annoyed over the soccer field situation, but she doesn’t see why they don’t want to return the baseballs.

Hundreds of balls seem to have been donated — the Minnesota Twins even reached out to LaMotte to organize a donation of a bucket of baseballs with the school district, which will distribute them to local teams.

LaMotte doesn’t know what resolution will come from all this attention. The district can’t build fences large enough to catch every stray ball after all, but she hopes the Petersons start acting more neighborly, maybe even setting a bucket out with all the balls they collect every so often.

“I guess maybe what comes of it is just they leave us alone,” she said. “Let us play baseball.”