Bring on Baseball

BROOKINGS — Brookings Friends of Baseball held its annual Bring On Baseball Banquet on Thursday and it was a success yet again.

This was the sixth year that Friends of Baseball held the banquet and the proceeds each year go to the organization. The money goes to things like maintaining batting cages, new equipment like pitching machines and then the remaining balance goes to a fund for developing their indoor facility.

Brookings Friends of Baseball President Brady Diercks said this year’s banquet was the most successful in the six years that it has been held.

“This year was definitely the biggest year for both attendance and funds raised. Each year we try to add new items or fundraising ideas. This year we added a gun raffle. It’s hard with so many organizations doing these events to keep it fresh and new, but that’s the goal each year,” Diercks said.

The banquet is also used as an opportunity to hand out scholarships and awards. The FOB hands out two post secondary education scholarships each year and this year’s recipients were Jay Harris and Nolan Wagner.

FOB also gave away its Bob Sheldon Award of Excellence to Nolan Krogman. That award goes to the player in the organization that exhibits the values of the organization.

The other award that was given out for the first time was the Friends of Baseball Legacy Award, which was given to longtime Brookings player and coach Jeremy Deutsch.

This was the first banquet under Diercks, who became president of Friends of Baseball in October. He said the transition from Mike Lockrem to him has been very smooth.

“It’s been really good,” Diercks said. “I’ve been fortunate. We’ve got a very consistent board that has been together for a few years now, and I’ve been able to lean on the board quite a bit. Specifically, past president, Mike Lockrem, so he is still helping on the board. He knows this stuff like the back of his hand, because he did it for so long, and has a lot of administrative experience. So it’s I’ve really lucked out, and the good group that I have that I’m able to lean on quite a bit.”

The Brookings baseball teams will begin their 2026 seasons after Memorial Day and Diercks said there is one change. This year Brookings will have two junior legion teams, a black team and a red team. The two teams will be split after tryouts and the need for two teams is because of an influx in numbers at that level.

Other teams include a senior legion team, a 16U team, a 14U team, a 13U team and a 13/14U team. Brookings also has a 12U team, an 11U team, two 10U teams and a 9U team, along with a youth in-house league.

Diercks said the organization would not be able to have so much success without the community.

“We couldn’t do any of this without the donations to the community. Special thanks to Advantage Land Company for all their hard work.

They have been a huge partner for all six years. We have so many other community partners to thank [as well]. I say it all the time, this community is amazing,” Diercks said.