Baseball Hall of Fame member Bill Veeck loved the colorful sight of a full stadium. His son Mike Veeck is making that a year-round vision at the new CHS Field in downtown St. Paul, the home of the American Association St. Paul Saints.
The $63 million baseball stadium opened in late May in the historic Lowertown neighborhood of St. Paul. And although the Saints finished their season with a playoff loss in mid-September, the 7,200-seat stadium will remain open. The city of St. Paul owns the stadium, which is operated by the Saints.
“The Saints have always known their place,” Saints co-owner Veeck said in an interview at CHS Field, named after a St. Paul-based Fortune 100 agricultural and energy cooperative. “That’s one of the keys to our success. We didn’t come in and say, ‘By God, come and see great baseball.’ We came in understatedly elegant. If you like a heavily urban ballpark, this is your stop. Everywhere you look, there are cityscapes. You can see the mighty Mississippi River. The Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary (on the north shore of the Mississippi River and the former site of the North Shore Brewery, circa 1853) is just beyond the batter’s eye. People who wanted us to build a monolith of brick and mortar didn’t have it right. We had to be heavily accessible.
“We leave the gates open. People come in and have their lunch, sit in the stands in their ballpark. It’s only ours for 50 dates. There’s another 150 dates that belong to the fans. Those gates are open. People get it, ‘The Saints put a quarter of the money up; they’re using the ballpark a quarter of the time.’ The other 150 times will be ice rinks, Dr. John concerts, jazz festivals, high school games, Rotary groups.”
For example, the popular St. Paul hip hop collective Doomtree headlines an Oct. 3 festival at the park.
CHS Field contains a 17,200-square-foot dog park behind the third-base concourse. Long before game time during baseball season, a Lowertown resident brought his boxer, Muggsy Bogues, for a walk. “The dog park is our answer to the knothole gang,” Veeck explained. “It is free and open all the time. Every ballpark has to have at least two or three places where you can sneak in.”
In terms of fair play, CHS hosted the Aug. 12 Internet Cat Video Festival, which previously was held at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Chicagoans traveling north to the Twins Cities should know that St. Paul has interesting Chicago connections.
Mike Veeck’s father, Bill, owned the Chicago White Sox from 1959-61 and 1976-81 (he also owned the St. Louis Browns and the Cleveland Indians). The Saints’ “team psychologist” and co-owner is Wilmette-born actor Bill Murray, who managed to attend the May 21 opening-day ceremonies at CHS Field despite closing out the “Late Show With David Letterman” earlier in the week. Murray’s smiling face appears along the concourse with the tag line, “We Won’t Break Your Heart.”
Veeck and Murray have been part of the Saints operation since 1993, when they brought independent league baseball to St. Paul. The league is not affiliated with the major leagues.
Lowertown also has its own Chicago connection. In the late 1800s, the area was a manufacturing center filled with warehouses, many of which remain. Architects rebuilding Chicago after the 1871 fire experimented with iron framing in Lowertown, and their technique spread across the country. Its historical significance landed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Also historic is the St. Paul Farmers’ Market, which dates to 1852. The market moved to its current location at Fifth Street East and Wall Street in 1982.
“It’s unique because you have to have grown whatever you’re selling within a 50-mile radius of the market,” St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said. Today’s market is across the street from CHS Field, an appropriate connection for a stadium named after an agricultural cooperative. (CHS is the world’s third-largest producer of sunflower seeds.)
“I challenge anybody to look at where the farmers market ends and where the ballpark begins,” Veeck said. The market has 167 open-air stalls and runs Saturdays and Sundays through November. Adjacent to the market is the acclaimed Heartland restaurant (www.heartlandrestaurant.com, 289 E. Fifth St.), which features regional farm-to-table fare like steelhead trout prepared by five-time James Beard finalist Lenny Russo.
The earthy vibe extends into CHS Field, which was designed by Minneapolis-based Snow Krelich Architects, who deployed warm details, like weathered-copper exterior tiling and Western red cedar that replicates neighborhood warehouses. Built on the site of a former Gillette factory, the seating bowl actually is 35 feet below ground level. The streetscape is parallel to the level of the second deck.
“The 1970s had a couple blights,” Veeck said. “Disco. And the Gillette building was built in 1979 (the same year as the Bill and Mike Veeck-Steve Dahl Disco Demolition in Chicago.) It was the ugliest corrugated building you had seen. We helped knock down both — lordy, lordy lordy.”
And fans are appreciating that. They have turned out in droves to see the new stadium, which replaced the rickety Midway Stadium in St. Paul. The stadium led its league in attendance, drawing an average of 8,016 per game.
Twin Cities fans love the Saints’ wacky touches, like the regular “Karaoke With a Real Japanese Guy” featuring Seigo Masubuchi, a Tokyo native who also is an interpreter for the Minnesota Vikings. “Seigo doesn’t know how bad he is, which makes it so funny,” Veeck said. “His mother in Japan has a karaoke bar.”
Parking can be tough around CHS Field, but in the city added a Green Light rail line that drops fans off at the ballpark and farmers market. The Saints encourage “railgating” by the rail line, and commuters purchase goods from the market.
This era of good feeling around the ballpark and market has spread. Affordable warehouse space of the revived neighborhood has made Lowertown a popular creative incubator. “There’s around 400 artists here,” Veeck said. “We called on artists’ groups to talk about the ballpark, noise, fireworks, composting, recycling. There’s music here, and who is better than a group like us? (Saints co-owner ) Van Schley was the cinematographer on ‘Woodstock.’ We got Bill Murray.”
Mayor Coleman added, “Lowertown has long been an arts community. As it has changed, arts continued to be a part of the neighborhood. It wasn’t the typical pattern where artists come in, make a place cool and can’t afford to live there anymore. Downtown is busy seven days a week. I’ve lived in St. Paul all my life, and I haven’t seen anything like it.”
Restaurants Saint Dinette, Ox Cart Ale House and Big River Pizza all opened in Lowertown after CHS Field debuted in mid-May.
Veeck looked around the stadium as he sparkled like a disco ball under a deep blue sky. “Dad was a smart guy, but he did a couple things wrong,” Veeck said. “One thing he was wrong about was never fall in love. His idea was that you hit and run. You build a club like Cleveland, sell it for more, have a little money, rest for a while and then you buy another broken-down one and build it up again. That’s all accurate.
“I fell in love in St. Paul.”
“The Mike Veeck family, Libby (Veeck’s wife), Night Train (their son) and Rebecca (their daughter), we put everything on the line for this club. And fans came out in record numbers. You never forget your first fine careless rapture. There’s been 22 seasons of unbelievable fan support. We put $11 million into this, but we’re going to make some money on the deal if we do our job right. All downtown St. Paul needs to mature are people. That’s where we can be helpful. And that is very important to me because we should be able to give back to the community.”
Dave Hoekstra is a freelance reporter and host of “Nocturnal Journal With Dave Hoekstra” on WGN radio.
