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NEW ULM -- Former New Ulm Journal Sports Writer Pat Donnelly, who wrote for The Journal from 1985 through 1990, is in the process of writing a fictional baseball book that is based on his experiences as a player with the New Ulm Brewers from 1988 through 1991.
Donnelly was in New Ulm last weekend for the DI American Legion State Baseball Tournament and did some PA work for games.
Now Donnelly is a free-lance writer who also covers Minnesota sports for the Associated Press and Major League Baseball.
"For the last two summers I have averaged around 60 Twins home games a year," he said. "And then in the offseason I am doing the Timberwolves, Wild, the Gophers and the Vikings. I am still using all of my sport writing skills. And I have also written non-fiction books about sports for kids."
Donnelly's fictional baseball book is tentatively entitled "One More Summer."
"It is based in the fictional town of Sandbar and based on my experiences here in New Ulm," he said. "The story is about a group of guys who are in their early 20s and on the edge of adult-hood and are trying to move on and become young adults and yet feel the pull of playing baseball with their buddies -- being kids in big bodies."
He said in the fictional book there are some memories of when he played in the Tomahawk League.
"You will find bits and pieces of the players that I played against in the league," he said. "And it is based in Sandbar, which is basically New Ulm. The park in Sandbar is a WPA project and is right by a river. You will recognize New Ulm in the book."
Donnelly said that he wants to have a draft of the book completed by the end of this year.
"Right now I have written about 70,000 words for the book and I can do about that many more, but that may be too long," Donnelly said. "I will need to find an editor after that -- I edit other people's stuff, but they say that anyone who edits their own work has a fool for an editor, so I will find someone who wants to take a look at it. From there on I will try and find a publisher."
Donnelly said that he has many positive thoughts and memories of Johnson Park.
"It just so beautiful and so well-maintained, especially with the way it sits below the street level," he said. "You walk in that main gate and you see the field all the way out in front of you and below you, so that memory popped up a lot. It was a great place to grow up."
Donnelly said his best memory of Johnson Park came in the mid 1990s as a member of the Minneapolis Blue Sox.
"We came down to play the Brewers every year and I hit a home run in the ninth inning off of my old teammate Brad Lapatka," he said. "And as far as a member of the Brewers -- that was in 1991 in the last game here when we beat Springfield 2-1 to clinch a trip to the state tournament. We were close in 1990 when New Ulm hosted the state, but [Stark] and Henry [Helget] got us."