By John McLoone

The Hastings Hawks, Hastings Youth Athletic Association and the City of Hastings have teamed up to start some major repair and upgrade projects at Veterans Park. First on the list is a new scoreboard along with batting cages and other amenity improvements.

Veterans Park is accessible from the Hastings Industrial Park off Millard Ave. This park is situated well within the city limits of a 25,000-person town, yet its location makes you feel like you are in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Veterans Park is home to the Hastings Hawks amateur baseball team as well as HYAA’s 14–18-year-old players. It is one of three full-sized baseball fields in Hastings and thanks to many volunteers, it is the top park in town. Vet’s sees around 90-100 events in a normal five-to-six-month period from April until at least October.

The park is the only fullsized baseball field in town with lighting and a dedicated concessions stand with restrooms. Between the Parks department and the dedicated Hawks volunteers, there is often five or more days of maintenance on the field because of the busy schedule in the prime of summer.

The most recent addition to the park is a 28-foot-long, 8-foot-deep press box behind the bleachers that was built in 2015. The press box changed the atmosphere dramatically at Vets for fans and players alike.

The problem that Vets is facing is much of its infrastructure is aging. The scoreboard has died, the dugouts are caving in, the backstop is 40 years old and needs replacing and there are not dedicated batting cages in town, except at the

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Rendering courtesy of AIM Electronics.

high school. The feature that sets the uniqueness of the park, the lights, are failing. The bigger problem is all of these things that should be there and functional are failing all around the same time.

“Last year, the scoreboard really took a turn for the worse,” said Hawks President Bruce Karnick. “It got bad. The bottom row for each inning went crazy and there is just no way to fix it because parts are no longer available.”

That catastrophic failure pushed the Hawks Board to accelerate the planning of replacement options. They approached numerous businesses to find a sponsor but were turned away given the estimated $35,000 price tag and it being in the middle of a global pandemic. During this process, HYAA had their annual election of officers and longtime Board President, Cindy Lyon stepped down from her role. That opened the door for other positional changes and the HYAA board suddenly had new faces. These new faces expanded communication with the Hawks and became more open to helping facilitate repairs at Vets.

At the end of 2021, The Hawks had pledged $12,500 to projects at Vets. Not long after, HYAA followed suit. Suddenly, a new scoreboard was very possible.

With a solid starting cash of $25,000, Karnick began the legwork by contacting AIM Electronics out of Eden Prairie.

“AIM was the group that installed the original scoreboard back in the 90’s,” explained Karnick. “They have been absolutely wonderful to work with and an amazing partner in our corner answering all of our tech calls on the existing board so I really hoped we could stay with them. Plus, I really like the way the Daktronics scoreboards operate so it just makes sense to try to keep that relationship going.”

Daktronics manufactured the current scoreboard and the control panel in the press box went bad a few years ago. That prompted the need for a new board. The financial savings there also pointed to Daktronics being the right fit. Taking out the cost of the control board brought the quoted price down to just over $33,000.

Parks Director Chris Jenkins became involved and offered funds he had been holding onto for a major project at a park in town. The $12,000 dollars was put in a dedicated fund to be used as needed at a park in Hastings. Between the three, the scoreboard was now fully funded, but it does not stop there.

Further discussions and exploration of the need for multiple bids, Jenkins found that AIM Electronics is part of a coop for state approved contracts. That did two things, negated the need for additional bids, and lowered the price even further.

No additional bids meant that they could choose AIM for their outstanding service and not risk having a bid come in lower for a lesser quality product and lower service ability. The additional discount brought the board down to $31,687 installed, well under the budgeted amount. With that good news in place, the story gets even better.

Jenkins was going through some financial documentation to present to the city council for approval of the use of the dedicated $12,000 fund when he was reminded of an additional fund. This fund, also a dedicated fund, had been in the system for years and has a more specific dedication.

“I received a call from Chris at the start of March,” Karnick said. “He told me that the city was not going to be able to use the $12,000 toward the scoreboard. It was a good effort to mess with me and it worked. I was not happy until he explained the rest of his plan.”

What Jenkins followed up with was a reminder of the fund that the Hawks had been donating to over the years. This is also the fund that the fence sign advertising goes to when the Hawks sell a fence sign for the baseball field. This fund had been set up around the beginning of the century and it had over $17,300 in it. These funds were all collected by the Hawks and directed to the city to be held onto for future projects.

Jenkins put the proposal together for City Council and it was placed on the consent agenda. If there ever was a no brainer of a consent agenda item, this was it. $17,300 dollars in a city fund that was raised by private donors and sign sales in a fund dedicated to the Veterans Park baseball field with up to $15,000 of available matching funds from two local baseball organizations, and the cost to the city was nothing. It was approved unanimously at the City Council meeting last Monday night.

The good news should pause there, but it did not. HYAA and the Hawks pledged $25k together. The additional funds raised since 2000 that the city was holding dropped the price so far that $10k of the $25k was freed up to go toward other projects at the baseball field.

Jenkins ordered the scoreboard with John Grabow of AIM Electronics on March 8 in the same color scheme as the scoreboard at Todd Field. Blue paint with white lettering and a white boarder and amber LEDs. By March 9, the expected delivery date was given, early June which meant a likely late June install. That would be more than half of the baseball season was over, but a new scoreboard was coming.

“Thursday morning, John emailed me,” explained Karnick. “He said, ‘since we were originally talking green, I never thought of this until today.’ John proceeded to explain that he had a blue scoreboard almost identical to what we ordered that was the wrong blue from the factory for Elrosa, MN. It was already in Minnesota and was going to be replaced Friday. It had never been connected to electricity so, by all accounts the board is brand new. But because it was installed in December, they had to sell it as used. He would have to change a couple vinyl decals on it, but he could do that in a week and get it installed before the season starts. Oh, and it had the full new warranty on it.”

That meant that Hastings could get a brandnew scoreboard that had been stored outside since December 2021 in about two weeks at a substantial discount. The only difference? The LEDs are white and not amber. The savings on the board? $3,018 and at least 12 weeks. Another easy decision.

A story that started with two local sports organizations spending $25k on a $35k scoreboard finished with those two organizations spending around $11,300 combined. That frees up nearly $14k to put toward other projects that desperately need to be done out there.

“We had a list of seven things we wanted to do out at Vets. That list has shuffled around a bit, but we believe that we can get six of the seven things done out there this year. The Parks Department has the tools and know how to knock out two, maybe three of those items on the list. That leaves batting cages, a fence around the seating area so we have a controlled entrance, and the back stop replacement,” added Karnick.

The controlled entrance does a lot for hosting tournaments and opens opportunities for concessions to sell beer. The batting cages will benefit both baseball and softball and then there is the remaining item, the backstop. That is item number seven and it is a project that is a bigger scope item. The Hawks are looking to modify the backstop plan to include a plaza, new dugouts and an integrated grandstand, at which time, they are looking to replace the stadium lights too.

“We’re going big,” a determined Karnick said. “By big, I mean, we want to be an option to host section and state tournament games at a variety of levels. That brings people into Hastings and those people spend money here. They get hotel rooms, they go to restaurants, they shop. Nine years ago, I was told we would never have a press box, in 2015 that was built, I am done taking no for an answer. We are working to change our baseball field into a baseball stadium and the mindset is you are either helping us reach that goal or you are in the way. I hope that this summer shows the commitment of the seven Hawks board members to make Veterans Park a regional destination for baseball. The partnership with the Parks Department and HYAA just makes this process infinitely easier. This should be destination that keeps kids wanting to play a great sport so that one day they can play on the field that we helped build.”

If you would like to help the Hawks, HYAA and the city reach that goal contact Bruce via email, [email protected] Aside the from monetary needs to get the supplies, they could use in-kind labor donations for installing fence and the batting cages, they could use a structural engineer and an architect to create drawings for the complex and other trades to get things done at a lower cost.

Photo by Bruce Karnick

The scoreboard at Veterans Park was installed in the late 90’s and has finally had its last failure. Parts are no longer available making the board good for only scrap. The advertiser panels will be reused with the new board and are officially available for new sponsors as of now.