Let there be light for Kendrick baseball

A historic milestone is coming to the Juliaetta-Kendrick area thanks to the efforts of local baseball fans who pitched in to have lights installed at the Kendrick Tigers’ home site, Heimgartner Field in Juliaetta.

The Tigers will host the Garfield-Palouse Vikings at 6 p.m. Monday in a season debut that will also be the first-ever night game held on their home turf. Free hotdogs will be provided to fans courtesy of the Juliaetta-Kendrick Baseball Association.

Ty Bromley, a former Kendrick baseball and softball coach and JKBA member, helped get the effort to bring lights to the field off the ground.

“A year-and-a-couple-of-months ago, I kind of just decided, since we’d had the telephone poles at the grounds for a reasonable amount of time, I felt like getting the project finished,” he said. “So, I started fundraising. Along the way, a lot of people have jumped in and helped me out, and we got it done.”

Bromley explained that the installation of the lights opens up a world of new possibilities for the community.

“Now that we have the lights down here, we have more opportunity for tournaments, possibly even hosting district tournaments and State,” he said. “It’s virtually like having another baseball field.”

Another potential project Bromley and the baseball association envision is the establishment of summer travel ball teams based in the Potlatch River Valley.

In the meantime, they will be happy to watch the Tigers compete under their hard-earned lights in the coming weeks. Further night games are scheduled for March 31 against Nezperce at 6:30 p.m., April 3 against St. Maries at 6:30 p.m. and April 18 against Lapwai at 7 p.m.

“We’re pretty proud of ourselves,” Bromley said. “It’s pretty impressive just to see it with the lights on, if I may say so myself.”