Baseball field built on a farm near Fertile becoming summer spot

Story and photo courtesy  Chris Murphy in the Fargo Forum.

Ryan Strem, 38, glowed as another Tuesday night of baseball at Strem Field was approaching. He was up at 4 a.m. to make sure the sprinkler system was keeping the grass in the outfield a perfect green. The corn stalks behind the grass stood 8-to-10 feet tall, swaying in the summer wind, serving as the outfield fence.

Strem wasn’t sure if there were 80 or 90 hamburgers ready for grilling, along with 60 hot dogs, but he was proud of either number. He walked to check on the panels for the scoreboard in right field. The scoreboard had “Strem Field Dream Big” on it.

Volunteers provide free food for the crowds during the ball games at Strem Field in Fertile. Hamburgers and hot dogs were grilled.

John Mellencamp’s song “Pink Houses” was booming over the speaker. In the refrain, Mellencamp sang, “Ain’t that America, home of the free.” Soon, more than 150 people, armed with food, drinks and jobs to do, would be arriving at the Strem’s family farm, so kids, ages 2-14, could play baseball for free.

“Isn’t this great. You just don’t get it in the big city,” Strem said, as he stood in the outfield looking at what he and a community had created.

That’s when commentator Josh Bolstad, who has experience as an auctioneer, came over the loudspeaker and joked, “This whole night going to be media relations or are we going to play ball?”

Volunteers man the scoreboard on the edge of Strem Field with a natural fence of tall corn around the diamond during the Tuesday

Strem, a 1997 Fertile-Beltrami High School graduate, really never played baseball growing up, but his 10-year-old son, Bryer, loves it. For his eighth birthday, Bryer wanted to play a baseball game, so Ryan made his youngest child a baseball field.

“His parents have a huge front lawn, so he made a little field there,” said Kylie, who has been married to Ryan for 17 years. “He painted a Twins sign on it and the kids thought it was a pretty big deal to have a field. They kept wanting to play again. We didn’t want to keep making a Tuesday-night tradition in his parents’ front lawn, so we moved it to the farm, which wasn’t being used. It was a great way to make use of a beautiful spot.”

Driving north on Highway 32, the second left upon entering Fertile will bring you to a paved road along the north side of Sandhill River Golf Course. The road turns to gravel, leading to the farm that has been in the Strem family for more than a century. This is where Ryan built Strem Field, while being a real estate agent, owner of a family truckstop and billboard business, husband and father of three children.

“This doesn’t get done by just me,” Ryan said. “It’s my hobby. It’s my passion. I’ll mow this, my dad will mow this. We’ll be planting corn, striping it, but it’s the joy of seeing kids come out and entertaining and laughing and get really into a good baseball game.”

There is non-stop laughter and cheering, but the details of game day are taken seriously and require a community. Alex Schmalenberg, Nick Aakhus, and Jeff Haaven switch off doing scoreboard duties, Bolstad announces the kids’ names as they step to the plate, while providing jokes between at-bats, and Fertile-Beltrami High School music director Richard Schrom sings the national anthem and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the seventh inning.

As for the field, Strem got help from guys who work at the golf course to keep up the sprinkler system, bought an old scoreboard from one school and was given bleachers from the 1950s from another. He grew the corn in the outfield.

When 6 p.m. rolls around, Strem waves all the kids on the field, questioning the ones clinging to their mom’s leg or hiding near the fence if they really don’t want to play. They always end up running on the field. Strem splits up the kids by age. The kids in third grade and below get to play first. They each get two at bats with no at bat ending until they make contact. 

“For baseball, the younger generations it’s not as popular as it used to be,” said Aaron Cook, who is the Win-E-Mac athletic director. “This makes it fun for them to want to come play. The old kids help out the younger kids when they’re coming in, everyone is cheering for everyone. There’s no winners, no losers. It gets them interested, and it’s fun for them.”

“It’s great to get the kids out and doing something instead of sitting in front of electronics,” Haaven said. “It teaches them team chemistry and team building. Plus, it’s good to get the practice. They look forward to it every Tuesday. This is a pretty big deal. I think back to when I was that age, how cool something like this would’ve been. It’s pretty fun to be able to do this for them.”

There’s a map of the United States in the shed near the field with pins in it of where people have traveled from to play on Strem Field. Ryan says the field is for anyone on that map.

“All that work that goes up to it is priceless,” Ryan said. “We want to keep it a novelty. We start in the end of June and go through the last week of August. It’s once a week with whoever can make it, within any community, any skill level, girls, boys, anybody. It’s here for anybody.”