Babe Ruth hopes to start some grandstand work this fall
From left, Bill Gustafson, Ray Queen and Travis Fields. Fileds and Gustafson of the Weyerhaeuser Foundation donated $10,000 to rebuild the grandstands at the Sapa-Johnsrud fields in Columbia Falls.
The effort to build new grandstands at the Sapa Johnsrud baseball fields is nearing a happy ending. The old grandstands burned down in a fire on June 27 that is thought to have started by kids playing with fireworks in a garbage can under the bleachers.
Since then, Ray Queen, the president of the Glacier Babe Ruth League has been busy fundraising to build new stands.
Last week, the Weyerhaeuser Foundation donated $10,000 to the effort.
Queen said that gives the organization $82,000 in the bank, plus other donations that have been pledged.
Now the league has to submit plans and get approval to build new stands at the same location by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
The DNRC owns the land. The Columbia Falls Baseball Association leases the land from the state and Babe Ruth, in turn, leases from the baseball association.
But Queen said as long the new stands sit on the same footprint, he expects the approval process to go rather quickly. He said they’d like to at least get the foundation in before winter. The stands will have a newer design, Queen said, and will be made of steel, with wood benches.
He said the plan is also to put up some safety structures so fly balls from the Babe Ruth fields don’t fall on the youth league fields, which are directly behind and adjacent to the fields.