EDITORIAL: Caswell continues to shine

Jun. 3—related content

Thumbs up to the community asset that North Mankato's Caswell Park continues to be.

Officials celebrated the recently completed upgrades to the park Thursday, which fittingly hosted some fantastic girls high school softball games that day.

The upgrades included new dugouts, black vinyl fencing, remodeled bathrooms and concessions stands, new lighting and scoreboards. Two soccer fields also were upgraded.

All was funded with local enthusiasm. Some $2.3 million came from a local sales tax approved by city voters. The state provided $2 million, and local soccer and softball clubs $700,000.

Next week the girls state high school softball tournament will kick of like it has for dozens of years, making the Mankato area the destination for softball. The exposure the region gets from the tourney and others contributes to the growth and prosperity of the area.

While the city's request for $10 million to build an indoor rec center at Caswell was not OK'd by the Legislature this year, officials say they hope to be in the running next year.

Let's hope the lawmakers see the wisdom in investing in a facility that not only benefits youth and adults from here but across the state. For now, everyone can take pride in this facility.

MoonDogs and major leaguers

The Mankato MoonDogs Northwoods baseball team kicked off its season this week with a fitting tribune to Curtis Granderson, longtime major league superstar who played a stint for the MoonDogs on his way to The Show.

It was a reminder of the great baseball provided by the MoonDogs in a beautiful ballpark that is easy to get to and easy to get into.

Granderson played for the MoonDogs' predecessor Mankato Mashers in 2001 and went on to play for eight major league teams in 16 seasons, including the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers and Miami Marlins.

His No. 28 jersey was retired at the MoonDogs opener Monday.

But he was not the only major leaguer with MoonDogs experience. Brandon Crawford played for the Mankato team in 2005 before even attending UCLA, and he ended up as the starting shortstop for the San Francisco Giants in 2011 and 13 years later remains in that spot.

Both Crawford and Granderson were nominated for MVP multiple times and won numerous batting and fielding accolades. Crawford was twice on the World Series winning team.

As history shows, fans watching a MoonDogs game today may be seeing future major leaguers playing their hearts out in competitive, fun-to-watch baseball.

Mental health needs

Thumbs down to the continuing lack of beds in Minnesota hospitals and treatment centers to provide care for psychiatric patients.

A task force, created by the Minnesota Medical Association and the Minnesota chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, is highlighting the problem of psychiatric patients forced to stay in emergency departments for days and sometimes weeks because of a bed shortage.

The group's report said there are "alarming rates" of boarding patients with psychiatric diagnoses in ERs.

Keeping the patients for long periods in ERs not only means people are not getting the psychiatric help they need, but also means people with other health needs get delayed when they go to overcrowded ERs.

The task force says Minnesota needs to increase the size of the mental health workforce for inpatient and outpatient services as well as ensure psychiatric beds and staff are more evenly distributed statewide.

Hooray for civics

Thumbs up to Minnesota lawmakers who approved an education funding bill that included a requirement secondary students pass civics and personal finance classes to graduate.

It's the most sensible idea that never saw the light of day until now.

The changing world requires students understand civics to participate in democracy and understand personal finance to help them make good decisions for financial security.

This is a policy we can all get behind.