The 1970s were hellacious, from the four Kent State protesters being killed by the Ohio National Guard to the last days of disco, to the Symbionese Liberation Army and psychedelic drugs, to the end of the Vietnam War and the end of the Nixon presidency, to pro football roaring past major league baseball in popularity.
It was nuts and if you would have asked me about two of Minnesota’s hokiest late-summer entertainment elements, the State Fair and the state amateur baseball tournament, I would’ve said both might be around in a few decades, but with very reduced popularity.
“Green Acres’' was long gone, “Scarface’' was arriving, and hokey was dead. I assumed.
Fifty years later, the Fair is an overpriced food festival that draws record-breaking crowds. On a steaming hot day, you can see a couple of grandmas in their 80s each walking around with a bucket of chocolate chip cookies (soon to be battered chocolate soup), and hundreds are waiting in line to try deep-fried ranch dressing.
As for amateur baseball, the number of teams isn’t what it used to be as farmers have gotten fewer, farm families have gotten smaller, and the rural population declines through large hunks of Minnesota.
As for larger towns or the outposts with a ballfield, a church and two bars that still have a town team … it now seems to have robust popularity..
For instance: Maria Davey, the general manager at KMSP-TV (Ch. 9), went to a Miesville Mudhens game and was intrigued. She suggested sending a reporter once a week to a ballgame and doing a newscast from there. That started in 2018, it was still going this summer and has worked dandy — for amateur ball and the station.
In the mid-’60s, when I spent 2½ years at the St. Cloud Times. St. Cloud was the center of amateur baseball. One reason for that was Dick Putz, a member of the state baseball board starting in 1964. He was the iron-fisted president from 1974 to 1989, when he died of a heart attack — perhaps caused when someone mentioned the golden era of the Hamel Hawks in his presence.
