Legion Field set for great day of baseball this Saturday

The Havre Northstars American Legion baseball club have been through their ups and downs early this season but now they get some time off with festivities this weekend. This Saturday, the Northstars will host the professional baseball team, the Great Falls Voyagers, for a scrimmage at Legion Field. With the chance to compete against professional players, Havre head coach Patch Wirtzberger hopes his players get a lot out of the experience.

"I think it will be fun for them. It'll be good to see professionals go about their business throughout the day," Wirtzberger said. "Just learning about their process. Getting to chat with those guys will be good and it'll be cool for the kids to be able to pick the brains of some pro baseball players."

With the scrimmage coming between youth and professional baseball players, Wirtzberger and the others in charge made sure to try to even things out on the diamond. In the contest, Great Falls pitchers will pitch against Great Falls batters. The Northstars would then fill out the rest of the defense. On the other side, Northstars will be pitching against Northstar batters with Voyagers in the outfield and infield.

While they have done their best to level the playing field, the Northstars will still have to deal with playing with professional baseball players. For example, on defense they will need to handle the hard hit balls from professional baseball players that they are not used to. But Wirtzberger believes the experience will help make the Northstars a better team.

"Defense is one of the things we've been really working on but the exit velocity might be a little bit higher than we're used to," Wirtzberger said. "It'll be good for our guys to see stuff like that. The more challenging the better at this point and it is an exhibition, so we're going to use it as good practice."

The Northstars are 6-7 this season, so they will be looking to learn many things from the Voyagers that will help them move forward. The Voyagers have not begun their season yet, so this weekend's scrimmage should be a good warmup for the summer ahead.

Along with the game, there will be many other events at Legion Field throughout the day. At noon, a youth baseball camp will begin with the Voyagers working with young baseball players from the age of 5 through 12. The camp is expected to last from about an hour and a half to two hours.

Throughout the camp, the Voyagers will work on drills for fielding, catching, hitting and pitching with the young kids. There will also be a station for Voyagers to talk to youth coaches and parents about more baseball drills that they can do outside the camp.

There are only 25 kids currently registered in the camp, mostly from the local area. But players are welcome from everywhere and parents and coaches can still register their kids for the camp for $50 online today. The youth camp will also take registrations at the gate on Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to noon. All the proceeds from the youth camp will go towards Havre youth baseball.

Shortly after the youth camp, the Northstars and Voyagers will play each at 3 p.m. in a nine-inning game. Throughout the contest, Voyagers will mingle with the crowd and sign autographs. Once the game is wrapped up, a home run derby will take place. While the batters for the derby have not been decided yet, there will be two Voyagers and two Northstars competing in the event.

With all these events taking place Saturday, Wirtzberger believes it will be a great day to celebrate the game of baseball at Legion Field. Not only does he hope the scrimmage will help his team, but he hopes it will continue to grow the love of the game in Havre.

"I think it's going to be a great event for our community and our local youth," Wirtzberger said.

The youth baseball camp will begin at noon at Legion Field. The scrimmage between the Havre Northstars and the Great Falls Chargers will then begin at 3 p.m. After the game ends, the home run derby will start.