FOX 9 Town Ball Tour: Loretto Larks celebrating 100 years

You're watching Fox 9's Town Ball Tour. Welcome back to the Fox 9 Town Ball Tour. We are in beautiful Loretto tonight. They have put the Fox 9 logo on the field at home base and we are at Arnold Claire's Field, a nice little valley when you come into Loretto. Beautiful ballpark and we've already got a great crowd already forming around us. So we're looking forward to a very interesting and fun night to wrap up our season of venturing around Minnesota to look at Town Ball teams and to highlight some of the communities. A century ago baseball began in this community and it happens again and again every year with the dedication and just the service too because it's a lot of volunteer work that goes into putting these teams together. Tonight we are joined by two guys who know a thing or two about the dedication that goes into putting the Loretto Larks on the field. So these two players, they also have other jobs, important jobs. They have a long tenured, they're the two longest tenured current players on the team I believe, if I have that right. I'm going to read your resume because it's a pretty extensive resume. Kent was the North Star League batting champ in 2007, the league MVP in 2010, right, in between your mayoral duties, which is weird, right? And Tyler over there, a two-time North Star League MVP, taking home the honors in 2012 and I believe in 2014, right? Sounds good, yeah. You guys know baseball. You are the veterans on the field. When you put that jersey on, you are stepping into the history books of this wonderful community. So Tyler, I'll start with you. How does it feel to put the jersey on, run out there, and be able to play baseball here in Loretto? That's a great question. I've been playing here for 18 years, 20 overall. My grandpa actually was playing. Joe Becker played for Loretto. My uncle played for Loretto. My dad played for a short period of time. My cousin's husband is, I played with him and now I'm playing with his son. So it's that community feel and it's also kind of a family feel too, so that's pretty special. Yeah, we see that. It's all in the family all the time and same for you, Kent. I mean, how does it feel when you get to go out here? Do you ever get tired of it? Do you ever feel like, I'm just too tired from the day to play a game tonight? No, not at all. It's always great. You know, like you were mentioning, you know, we did have a few MVPs back in the day. We went from being the young guns on the team to now we're kind of the veteran guys, but I think that's also part of it is, you know, you can still compete with some of the young guys and, you know, some of the kids coming out of high school, you know, they might, they think that, you know, oh, who's this old guy? And then you go and you try to out do them. So it's great. It's funny when you reference old guys. This is the question that we ask athletes who've been in the league for a while and it's, hey, how has your game changed since those early days? Other than you're older. Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest thing for me, just the, yeah, the speed for sure. There's not much of a speed game anymore, but I think, you know, you also get older, you get craftier, you know, crafty veteran moves and all that, but yeah, it's just fun, you know, beautiful night to come out and play ball and have fun. Yeah. It is so fun to be out here. I'm sure it never gets old. Tyler, two-time MVP, 2012, 2014. And then town ball, of course, takes up a lot of time. A lot of these guys are rolling in here, ripping off their work clothes for the day. How do you stay competitive when you have so much going on in your personal lives? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. In the summers, I'm fortunate. I'm a teacher. So seventh grade teacher actually in Howard Lake. So what do you teach? Social studies. All right. So I taught most of these guys. I coached most of these guys that were playing tonight, but it starts with family first. My wife, she's a rock star. I have two little ones at home. We're expecting one on the way. So to leave her for four hours, you know, either a night or a day is really tough, but you know, she does it because she understands and she wants to be a part of it too. And your kids can be a part of it someday as well. For someone who may be watching at home, and a lot of them do, talk about the community support that you get. I mean, in every town that we go to, it's often referenced the support that you get from the community, not just to come out and watch the games, but also to take care of the field and show up for volunteering. How is it here in Loretto? Yeah, it's been great. It's one of those, you know, even today with Fox nine coming out, you know, you have people coming out. I know my neighbor the other day was like, Oh, I'm coming to that game. You know, had maybe hadn't been to a game in a while, but today he's coming. So it's one of those just fun to hear the buzz around town and get people excited about it. And again, kind of showcase the amazing ball field that we have. As the mayor, can't you just tell them to do it? Yeah, we maybe have to have a few more, a few more giveaways and sponsor nights. This is important though. You all need this, you know, time to be with your friends, be outside, you know, get some exercise. It's an important part of life and the way you grew up. So we see that time and time again, when we travel around these communities, thank you. We appreciate both of you. Thanks for joining us. Good luck tonight. We have a little something we need to give you too. Awesome. So this is our town ball sign that we present our communities when we leave and we hope you'll be able to find a place to hang it out proudly to remember us by awesome. It's kind of like we were here kind of thing. Yeah, perfect. We'll find a spot for it. All right, Tyler and Ken, we appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Good luck. Thank you. All right. Let's check in.