ESPN's Jim Caple visits Stark, watches game

STARK TOWNSHIP -- If you pick up a Minnesota state map, you will not find Stark included.

But that did not stop ESPN's Jim Caple of arriving in Stark Saturday night for the Stark-Sleepy Eye 2C playoff game.

Caple is traveling cross-country, driving from one end of interstate 90 from Seattle to Boston "Safeco Field to Fenway Park to watch sports along the way."

Caple, who lives in Seattle and a former St. Paul Pioneer Press sports writer before joining ESPN, said that he had a rule when he started out on his trip from Seattle.

"I said that I could go no further than 25 miles (north or south) of I-90 but my editors (at ESPN.com) wanted me to talk to (Baseball Commissioner) Bud Selig in Milwaukee and I figured that if I am breaking a rule there, I could stretch it here also."

Caple, a native Minnesotan whose father-in-law lives in Spicer, Minnesota said that he "has always heard about Stark."

So on his way east (Monday in Milwaukee to meet Selig, Tuesday he will be in Wrigley Field, Notre Dame will be his stop on Wednesday before going to Cleveland, Buffalo, Cooperstown, the Basketball Hall of Fame, and ending in Fenway Park in Boston on Tuesday) Caple decided to see some "town ball" in Stark.

Caple came to Stark after a visit to Sturgis, South Dakota and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally He said it "was fun but everything that I have done has been fun."

Caple started the Cleveland-Seattle baseball game last Sunday, before heading to Cheney, Washington for the Seattle Seahawk training camp.

"Then I went to Missoula, Montana and I went to the Western Montana fair and talked to some of the jockeys there," Caple said. "That is the low, low minor leagues of horse-racing and watched some bull riding competition."

That was followed by going to the Evel Knevel Hall of Fame in Butte, Montana before arriving in Sturgis last Thursday for the motorcycle rally.

"That was amazing." he said. "They say that there are 500,000 motorcycles there. And we all know that promoters always inflate the numbers some what, but I think they were right with that 500,000 number because I think that all 500,000 of them were outside my hotel room revving their engines in the morning. But that was amazing."

Caple, who covered the Minnesota Twins when he was with the Pioneer Press, said that finding Stark "was a little difficult. I got to Sleepy Eye and they told me to take County Road 27 to County Road 11 and then follow that until you get to a T-intersection and make a left and you can't miss it -- well I missed it. So I stopped in a farm house and they told me to head west. So I head west and I come to this baseball field and it is Sigel. So I think that there cannot be two baseball parks so close together. I was supposed to meet Myron Seidl and I kept driving and there was Stark."

When Caple arrived at Stark, Seidl was fixing up the field "and he invited me to his house for dinner with his wife, Cathy."

Caple had covered amateur baseball in Minnesota "and I had always heard stories about Stark and the Helgets and I have always wanted to come here and see the field and the people.

"This is what Minnesota town baseball is all about," he said. "It is just a field with these people who care so much about the game. The field is surrounded by their crops. Raising their crops is their life but their other life is playing on the field here and caring as much about the baseball field as their own field."

Caple said he went by the Leavenworth Baseball Park "and I noticed that some of the baseball fields will have a corn crop on one side and a cemetery on the other side of the baseball park. I saw that in a lot of parks and, to me, it is so fitting. The crops and life on one side (of the baseball park) , a cemetery and death on the other side and in the middle you have baseball which sort of fits in in our lives. It is what connects us to everything else."

Caple stayed at the park until the game was done,watching baseball and visiting with the fans and enjoying a famous Stark hamburger.

"I think that he had a good time," Seidl , who was contacted by Caple Friday. "He visited with a lot of the people here and he really fit it. It was really something that he came to Stark."

If you are interested in what Caple thought about his visit to Stark, go to http://espn.go.com/page2/s/caple/020812.html on the Internet.

BREWERS, SLEEPY EYE DRAFT: The New Ulm Brewers drafted Terry Helget from Essig and Sleepy Eye took Stark's Cole Deibele in the draft following the Sunday game between Essig and Sleepy Eye. The Brewers will play at 11 a.m. this Saturday in the Class "C" tournament in St. Cloud agianst Montgomery while Sleepy Eye will square off against Lonsdale at 1:30 that day, also in St. Cloud.