Reusse: Dick Bremer's hometown may not have a field, but still supports its townball stars

There's always a chance to put a foot in your mouth when starting conversation with a stranger at a sporting event. There's also a chance you will gain points with the individual, which is what happened in the middle of Saturday's Dumont Saints-Sobieski Skis ballgame at Waconia's Lions Field.

There was a middle-aged gent in a yellow Skis T-shirt standing next to the grandstand and I said: "That lefty for Sobieski … that kid's good."

Charlie Strack smiled and said: "That's my son, Caleb. He's at Winona State and pitches for me in the summer with the Randall Cubs. We're archrivals with Sobieski, but we got knocked out, and they took Caleb as their pitcher for the regional."

Minnesota's Class C amateur baseball allows one pitcher to be drafted from eliminated teams for a regional, and then three for the state tournament.

Caleb Strack helped get Sobieski through the regional, and now he has pitched the Skis to three state tourney victories and into Sunday's quarterfinals against Sartell.

"He had 17 strikeouts in shutting out Windom and went six innings in a win over Isanti," Strack said. "And then today … however this turns out."

It turned out to be Sobieski, 5-0 on a two-hitter with 11 strikeouts for Strack. And thus ended the tournament push for Dumont, despite the best efforts of Dick Bremer in the Saints cheering section, and Paul Zach, a parish priest in the making, behind the plate.

"My father was the Lutheran minister and our house backed right up to the ballfield," Bremer said. "In my last school year in Dumont, the Catholic grade school had 19 kids total and there were seven of us in public school.

"We moved and the public school closed."

Bremer remembers a sign outside town declaring Dumont's population to be 235. The sign now reads 100, although Darlys Forcier said: "I'd say we're now 75 at the most."

Forcier is in her 90s. She was Bremer's grade school teacher. Later, she taught 12 miles away in Wheaton for many years, while continuing to live in Dumont.

The two schools are long gone. The two churches are gone. And the baseball park is gone, lost to a flood in 1997.

The Dumont Saints, original members of the Land O' Ducks League, moved games to Wheaton after the flood and continue to play there. They do keep a connection by visiting the Dumont Bar and Grill with some frequency for hamburgers and beer.

Bremer, the long-serving Twins television voice, has a book written with Jim Bruton titled, "Game Used: My Life in Stitches with the Minnesota Twins."

There was a signing at the city park in Dumont last month and 400 people came and went. On Saturday, there were a few dozen Saints loyalists in attendance, distinctive with orange T-shirts.

The Saints roster included three players from South Dakota, two from North Dakota and a nucleus from Wheaton.

The same Minnesota radius rules apply to Dakotans, and catcher Paul Zach's hometown of Rosholt, S.D., is 20 miles away. He's 24 and this was his sixth summer playing for the Saints.

To participate in this fun, Zach was required to go to his superiors at St. Gregory the Great Catholic seminary in Seward, Neb., and ask for permission to drive the long trip to the Twin Cities for three consecutive weekends.

"This was my second year at the seminary," Zach said. "There was the summer break for me to play for the Saints, and I was allowed to be here for the state tournament.

"Next year, I'll be a senior, and it becomes far more demanding of our time."

So, this could be the end of your Dumont career for the foreseeable future? "That's possible," he said.

And once Sobieski put up a couple of early runs and Strack started zeroing in with his breaking pitch, possibility turned to inevitability for the future Fr. Zach.