The Express had a lot to celebrate Sunday, June 29. That afternoon marked not only a noteworthy 13-2 victory over the Watkins Clippers, but also the Express’ inaugural game in its refurbished ballpark. “Its good to be back home,” team manager Tom Marquardt said. “There’s no place like home when you’re playing baseball.” The team and community members and businesses have been dilligently working on the field since last August and plan to continue improvements on the Kimball Veteran Memorial Field over the next five years. “We’ve got a lot of projects we want to work on,” he said. “We’ll want to add a sprinkler system, new dugouts, new fencing and some lights.” According to Marquardt, a new scoreboard is the next field improvement Express fans can expect to see in the upcoming weeks. “The team has really come together to work on this project,” Marquardt said. “And its been very rewarding.” Marquardt said the field improvements are beneficial not only to the team, but to the city of Kimball as well. “It’s a big improvement for the city,” he said. “Just the way it looks when you drive down main street. It’s for the kids too. As they are growing up they will see a place that they will want to play ball in.” The Express players, like their manager, were also happy with the progress made so far on the park. “I fielded my first real ground ball,” said right-fielder Aaron Knaus. “That means the ball didn’t hit 20 rocks in the field before I caught it.” But the texture of the terrain wasn’t the only thing different about the field on Sunday. “The atmosphere was better,” Knaus said. “We’re proud of where we are playing, and that it is something we did; something the town did.”
