LOOKBACK: Cedar’s floods nearly move legendary baseball tourney
Austin recovers in 1978 to host state Legion tournament ending with future MLB players Hrbek, Steinbach facing off; Hrbek hits fabled homerun to center at Marcusen
By Tim Ruzek, CRWD
Down 12–3 in the bottom of the ninth, Bloomington’s tall first baseman stepped to the plate at Austin’s Marcusen Park.
Kent Hrbek, already drafted by the Minnesota Twins but hitless to that point of the American Legion’s state title game in 1978, then “unleashed a towering drive over the centerfield fence.”
Traveling about 400 feet, “it was one of the longest homers ever hit out of Marcusen,” which opened in 1948, the Austin Daily Herald wrote Aug. 15, 1978. The ball took a similar path as the grand slam Hrbek hit in the Metrodome during Game 6 of the 1987 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Hrbek, who hit three homers in the state tourney, still lost the MVP award to another future pro baseball player, Terry Steinbach, who went 5–6 with 3 RBI for New Ulm in beating Bloomington for the championship.
Both went on to have successful MLB careers — Hrbek with the Minnesota Twins and Steinbach with the Oakland A’s before ending his career with the Twins. Combined, they played in five World Series (winning three) and four All-Star games, and each has been inducted into his original team’s Hall of Fame.
This legendary game at Marcusen, however, almost didn’t happen.
Three weeks earlier, floodwater rose above Marcusen’s outfield fence, including a foot up on the new right-field scoreboard, and several rows into the grandstand.
Austin’s worst-known flood at the time (July 17, 1978) submerged the dugouts, concession stand and restrooms. It was Austin’s second major flood in 10 days.
A week before Austin was to host the 53rd annual Minnesota State American Legion baseball tournament — last time was in 1959 — Marcusen’s outfield grass had several inches of silt and wet spots. Locals still believed Marcusen would be in “ideal shape” barring further rain.
“Marcusen Park had better dry up” or Austin might have to find another site, Herald columnist Don Jones wrote July 29. After a year of planning, making “a change now would be a problem they don’t need.”
Crews were working hard but needed drying weather.
“At first, we thought the outfield grass would be completely covered up by mud but there is grass showing through,” Austin Parks & Recreation’s Denny Maschka said July 20. “Once the mud dries, it will turn to powder and we can scrape it off but it all depends on the kind of weather we get.”
By Aug. 2, Marcusen was declared ready for the tourney but another 10 days were needed to get the field in good shape.
Weather cooperated, and Austin welcomed 10 teams for the four-day, double-elimination tourney split between Marcusen and an Albert Lea ballpark.
Austin’s Post 91 Legion team was 10–14 but automatically qualified as the 11th team in the state tourney as the host.
An opening banquet at Riverside Arena featured Bill “Moose” Skowron, who talked about his pro career that included playing for the New York Yankees in eight World Series and five All-Star games.
Skowron was a legend in Austin, where he played one season in 1950 for the amateur Austin Packers in the Southern Minnesota League before signing that fall with the Yankees.
In Austin, Skowron was remembered for hitting a monster homer at Marcusen. While not clear, it appears this might have happened in an Aug. 24, 1950, game against Albert Lea at Marcusen, when Skowron hit a “400-foot homer over the centerfield fence.”
In 1956, Skowron — also similar to Hrbek — hit a World Series grand slam against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Previewing the Legion tourney, the Herald referred to Hrbek — a 6–4, 205-pound first baseman and pitcher with a .434 batting average — as one of the “beefiest” in the tourney.
Leading to the title game attended by major-league scouts, the New Ulm team led by the Steinbach brothers — Tom and Terry — had beaten defending Legion champs St. Cloud and that year’s Minnesota high school champion Grand Rapids.
Interestingly, New Ulm lost 5–1 to Austin on Aug. 5 in a tourney warmup game but went on after the state tourney to play in the Legion’s national World Series.
Against Bloomington, New Ulm got 17 hits and 12 runs off four pitchers, including Hrbek, who struck out three over nearly three innings but gave up two hits, two walks and four runs.
A high school sophomore, Steinbach was batting .392 going into the tourney, where he played second base and shortstop. In the majors, Steinbach was a catcher.
As for Hrbek’s homer, he referenced it in his autobiography “Tales from the Minnesota Twins Dugout.”
A 1996 Herald article noted his homer grew to “mythical proportions,” with memories of the ball sailing “well past the centerfield fence. The ball apparently hit the front steps of a house, bounced to the street and was later retrieved near the Cedar River.”
That article interviewed Hrbek during his appearance at Marcusen for a Southern Minny Stars game but he didn’t remember much about the homer.
“We were getting our butts kicked when I hit it in the last game of the Legion playoffs,” Hrbek said. “The memories of hitting the home run are kind of overshadowed by us getting beat (12–4) that day.”
During a 1984 visit to speak at Austin’s Elks Youth Sports Banquet, Hrbek, whose fiancée had relatives in Austin, noted the championship game at Marcusen was the last he played without getting paid as that fall he helped the Twins’ team in the Florida Instructional League win a division title.
Hrbek’s comment in 1978 about that fall was fitting given his love for the outdoors, the focus of his TV program after baseball.
“I hit about .200 around an injury when I cut my ankle fishing,” Hrbek said, “but I learned a lot.”
In 1982, Hrbek was runner-up for MLB’s Rookie of the Year behind future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. He won World Series titles with the Twins in 1987 and 1991, and the team retired Hrbek’s number 14 in 1995.
Despite Hrbek retiring before Steinbach joined the Twins in 1997, the two have been close over the years. Both lost their father to ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
For three decades, the two have helped lead fundraising for an ALS nonprofit through an annual fishing tournament, winter snowmobile race and bike ride.
In 2024, Hrbek signed autographs at a New Ulm ballpark and spoke to The Journal about playing in 1978 against “the Steinbach boys” in Austin.
“I remember that I hit that home run pretty good — they still talk about it,” Hrbek said. “But I hit a home run in Albert Lea the night before that went over the light towers. They never knew where it came down. I just ran around the bases — no one knew where the ball went.”
