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Sports Memories by Tom Jones

15 years

• The team of Chris Baas, Tom Baas and Derby Olson won the three-man best shot golf tournament held at Green Lea Golf Course.
• The Albert Lea VFW baseball team kept its undefeated season alive with a 15-1 win over Waseca. Colby Strilaeff pitched six innings to get the win. The team was 7-0 on the season heading into a game with Mantorville.
• Albert Lea’s Logan Kortan and Anthony Tippett were named on the Albert Lea Tribune’s All-Area Baseball Second Team.
• Former Albert Lea wrestler Ben Berhow finished sixth at the Pan-American Junior Greco-Roman Championships in Cuenca Ecuador in the 120kg/264.5 lbs weight class.

20 years

• St. Paul native Joe Mauer was moving up in the Minnesota Twins farm system when he was promoted from Class-A Fort Myers to Class Double-A New Britain where he was to begin play as a catcher.
• Michael Greibrok pitched a seven-inning complete game to lead Glenville-Emmons to a 3-2 win over Blooming Prairie in American Legion baseball play.
• Brock Sorenson took the loss as the Albert Lea VFW baseball team was defeated by Rochester 13-2. Brandon Klukow and Kris Pleiss picked up RBIs for Albert Lea.
• Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was selected to be one of the coaches for the American League All-Star game that was being played at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

50 years

• Minnesota Twins president Calvin Griffith expected to have No. 1 draft pick Eddie Bane of Arizona State in his office to sign a major league contract.
• Albert Lea basketball coach Orrie Jirele had 45 players at a basketball camp at Southwest Junior High. He was assisted by Chuck Duhrkopf, Bill Laumann, Rod Zimmerman and Dennis Petersen.
• Randy Appel struck out nine Stewartville batters to lead Hayward to a 3-1 victory in South Border League baseball. Appel’s single in the eighth with the bases loaded drove in two runs in the win.
• Golden Valley Lutheran College announced that Albert Lea’s cross country runner Doug Peterson had accepted an offer to attend college there in the fall,
• In YMCA Little League baseball play, Scott Banton got the pitching win as First National Bank defeated Universal 8-2. Scott Leach took the loss. Terry Roberts and Banton each had three hits in the win.
• The Metropolitan Sports Commission was hoping to come up with a recommendation on either an expansion of Metropolitan Stadium or a new football facility for the Minnesota Vikings.

Albert Lea Lakers update

Ben Madison, who pitched in a few games for the Albert Lea Lakers in 2018 before leaving the team when he was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the ninth round of the MLB draft is off to a great start this year with the High-A Eugene Emeralds in the Northwest League. He has appeared in 19 games with a record of 7-1. In 32.1 innings pitched, he has struck out 52 batters.