Stockmen’s Irish vying for state championship

Update: South St. Paul’s Stockmen’s Irish recently punched their ticket to the state tournament with an 11-1 and a 1-0 win over the Highland Park Beavers. Their state tournament run begins against the Rochester Royals, 1:30 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 23 at Chaska Athletic Park, 725 W. First St., Chaska, MN.

By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | August 2026

The regular season is winding down for the Stockmen’s Irish baseball team and aspirations for the state championship title are burning as hot as the late summer sun. Playoffs begin August 4, and the Irish will have home field advantage at McGuire Field, 300 8th St. S., for at least a few games. The team, now in its 30th season, has made the state tournament in all but two years since 2013. It claimed its sole championship title in 2011.

New this year, the Skyline league, which includes the Irish, will compete against the St. Paul League in preliminary play. Each 7-team league has its own playoff tournament, and the winner gets an automatic seed at state. The remaining 12 teams will battle for three other spots. The overarching Class A league has 36 teams across the state, including South St. Paul’s, and 24 will advance to the state tournament. Class A teams typically have the most depth and actively recruit top players. Class B and Class C teams are generally true town ball teams that have mostly players from the respective cities.

As of press time, the Irish had a record of 13-7, with three games to go in the regular season. Injuries and hectic work and life schedules among some players whittled down the team to just nine players rather than its usual 15 for several games this year, including during a 4-game losing streak. However, most players are healthy again and the team is peaking for the post season, said team manager Todd Klingsporn. They took to the diamond more than usual in July, due to spring games that were rescheduled because of rain.

“For Stockmen’s to be around that long [30 years] and be one of the top 10 to 15 teams in the state each year is an honor and a credit to our players and the people who built the program,” said Klingsporn. “I’m blessed with a bunch of young kids and young men, and veterans that play the game the right way and respect the game. We make sure to make the community of South St. Paul happy with the way we carry ourselves.” Players range in age from early-20s to mid-30s.

This year the team recruited Donny Blunt, who was once drafted to the St. Paul Saints minor league team and had been an opponent on other Class A teams for many years. Klingsporn said Blunt has been a positive role model for the younger players who have dreams of playing in the big leagues, and his leadership was one of the main reasons they recruited him. Several other players have some college or amateur league experience, including South St. Paul native and former University of Minnesota-Twin Cities pitcher Ryan Duffy, who is now head baseball coach at South St. Paul Secondary.

McGuire Field also serves as home field for South St. Paul’s high school baseball team, and the city’s American Legion team. It features quality lighting, and a new scoreboard and sound system will be installed next spring, courtesy of the South St. Paul Youth Baseball Association, South St. Paul Public Schools and South St. Paul Parks and Recreation.

“The current one [scoreboard] sits in left field and is faced at home plate, and they’re going to move it over to the right field side,” said Klingsporn. “We always get a lot of fans who sit in left field, or back their pick-up trucks there and this will give them the visibility to follow the game on the scoreboard. The Croatian Hall and Duffy Holmes [Group] have been good sponsors and are the mainstays for the coming scoreboard.”

While the idea of spending a long evening watching town ball and chatting with neighbors on a warm summer evening is near synonymous with the word community, Klingsporn said overall crowd attendance has trended down over the years – although a few die-hard spectators never miss a game. He himself is a baseball coach at Tartan High School and has managed Stockmen’s Irish since 2013, when his son was recruited as a player for the team.

“At that time, Dan Cosgrove was running it, and Bill McGuire was still the sponsor, and those guys got to the age with their families that they didn’t want to do anymore,” he said. “Bill reached out to me and asked me if I would take it. Otherwise, the team would have folded at that time…. Bill sold his business maybe five years ago and to honor him we’ve always kept the name Stockmen’s Irish, even though that Stockmen’s Truck Stop is not still around. We thought that was the right thing to do for Bill with all the time he put in to building up that program.”

Klingsporn has no plans to leave the Irish anytime soon, and he has no problem recruiting new players eager to play. He said he has a close relationship with the baseball coach for Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and seven of the Irish’s current players are from there. He also knows the coach at Macalester College and often recruits from there, and each spring he puts feelers out to local high schools for any 17- or 18-year-olds who are ripe to join the team.

The Skyline league has been more competitive this year due to other teams’ recruitment efforts and it’s helping Stockmen’s Irish raise their own bar, said Klingsporn. The team most looks forward to squaring off with and getting revenge against the St. Paul Mudhens, who were leading the St. Paul League as of press time and could be a top opponent in the state tournament.
“If we’re healthy and we get our guys there, I like our chances,” said Klingsporn.

For the post-season schedule, visit mnbaseball.org/teams/stockmens-irish.

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