This story originally appeared in the County News Review and is reprinted with permission
By John Wagner
The Isanti Redbirds carried a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning of their District 1B contest against Cold Springs on Saturday, Aug. 15.
“Our guys are playing well. They’re relaxed, and we’ve just scratched out another run in the top of the eighth,” Manager Steve Allen said. “And their crowd was quiet. Then Cold Spring got a couple of bloop hits to start a rally, and the crowd just broke loose.
“Suddenly it was boom.”
That boom came from a nine-run Cold Spring onslaught that turned into a 9-2 loss to end the Redbirds’ season. Little did the Isanti town ball team know it was about to suffer another loss.
Two days later Allen announced he was stepping down after more than two decades as manager of the Redbirds.
“After the game, I knew I was done,” he admitted. “I just, I knew it. But I wanted to make sure that I talked it over again with [my wife] Rita before I did anything.
“And I didn’t share that at that time because I didn’t want to be in the spotlight. I wanted the players to remember the season, the good times, and the friendships they had developed.”
A long-time teacher in the Cambridge-Isanti school system, Allen helped form Cambridge-Isanti Competitive Baseball, the area’s youth baseball organization, while his sons Matt and Ryan were young. That was around 2001; at the time the Redbirds organization, which had a long history of success, had dropped from the town ball rolls.
“There were a lot of good people that I worked with when the CICB was formed,” Allen said. “Around that time, a few folks pulled Cindy Livingston and I aside and asked if we would be willing to take over the Redbirds.”
Looking back, Allen remembers that it wasn’t an easy decision to bring the franchise back to life.
“We had to go in front of the Eastern Minny League, and they questioned us as if we were a bunch of nobodies,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think we knew how financially solvent at the time the Redbirds were. The folks that ran the team had walked away for a reason.
“I remember that decision being very, very difficult. Cindy and I asked each other if we really wanted to do this. We decided that we did, because if we didn’t, our kids would probably be done with baseball.”
Allen admitted the franchise struggled in its early days.
“When we first started out, we weren’t a very good team,” he said. “We were using high school kids, and our winning percentage was not very high. But we always played hard. It took us some time to learn what it took to be a good team.”
When Allen and the Redbirds learned those lessons, they turned them into state appearances. Isanti advanced to the Class C state tournament five times in a six-year span from 2019-24, and before that they made a number of appearances in previous state tournaments.
The most notable state performance was posted by the 2011 squad, which won the Class c state title.
“I don’t remember that team ever being nervous,” Allen said of that championship team. “It was like a fine-tuned business that’s running on all cylinders. That was a group of guys who all played the game the right way.”
Allen said he hesitated to name specific standouts from that team, because he feared missing an important name.
“They were a lot of classy individuals,” he said. “It was a group of guys who were baseball fanatics, who really knew how to play the game. I don’t know if we were bigger, stronger, or faster than anybody else, but we surely were on the same page.”
But Allen said the organization’s success was measured in ways beyond state tournament appearances. In particular, he relished the friendships that were forged.
“Bud Heifort helped me coach this year, and Bud played for St. Francis — and I hated St. Francis early on,” Allen said with a smile. “And Bud’s dad, Tom, still comes to our games. Once Bud and I were talking about drafting players [for the state tournament], and he asked if I remembered when we wanted to draft him, and I sent Packy Lind over to ask if he would play with us — because it was not a given. …
“When I see people, they remember a story, maybe remember something that happened along the way.”
Allen had a hand in those memories as he served as team manager — a job that involved much more than showing up at the ballpark and filling out the lineup card. When asked about his responsibilities, he spent five minutes talking about field maintenance and stadium upkeep, uniforms, concessions, budgets — and not once talked about procuring players, which is perhaps the most difficult task of all.
The variety of tasks makes managing a successful town ball team a year-round job — which is why Allen wasted no time stepping down.
“Part of the reason that I wanted to make this decision right away is I knew if I didn’t, I would start thinking about next year,” he said. “The Eastern Minny is a great league, and I’m going to miss them, but they gave me grief because I start scheduling games in November. I think they passed the bylaw to try to make me wait till at least January. …
“I know there’s three and a half dozen baseballs there for next year, and I know we need six dozen — so I would order some. I would start thinking about what’s going to happen with the uniforms. I would start to create a budget. And then I would start talking to players about next year.”
Rest assured that Allen won’t miss the time spent on that work. But he will miss the interactions with players and their families as well as followers of the team.
“I’ll miss the people the most. There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “Whether it be the people on our team or in the league, I’ll miss the people. There’s a husband and wife, the Dooley’s, that I text them any changes in the schedule because they follow us. They were in Cold Spring for the tournament. They’ve been following us for a few years now.”
Why did Allen decide to retire?
“During the course of the season, there were times when I was physically exhausted, and probably mentally or emotionally exhausted, too,” he admitted. “I was at the point where [I realized] there’s life after baseball.
“I don’t think I ever noticed that before, that I was exhausted. There are times when you’re at the field for an evening game at four o’clock, and you don’t leave till 11 o’clock, then you get home and you put stats in the computer. Then you’re looking at the clock, and it’s one, two o’clock in the morning.”
What will Allen do with his new-found free time? Believe it or not, he will be chopping a lot of wood.
“I probably have wood for 10 years that’s all cut, marked and covered,” he said. “I’ll be burning 2017 and ‘18 wood. And I enjoy it. My wife has offered to buy me a splitter, but I don’t know. I do it all by hand. …
“We have a new wood stove that is really, really efficient — but it takes 19 inch logs. All my logs were cut at 24 inches. So every time I go out to start a roll of wood, I have to cut one to three inches off of every log.”
On a more serious note, Allen said he will be able to spend more time watching his grandsons, Laithen and Breck, who are competing in cross country, track and skiing at Mora.
“I do a lot of photography, and hopefully I’ll do more photography,” Allen said. “Before this, I just haven’t had time. And Rita has learned to travel without me, so hopefully I can help her unlearn that.”
Speaking of his wife of more than five decades, Allen said Rita tops the list of people he thanks for his long and successful run.
“She’s eligible for sainthood,” Allen said of his wife. “She never once said, ‘Why do you have to go or do something? Are you sure you have to be that long?’ She has always been a hundred percent supportive. …
“A couple of years ago, when she took over the concession stand, she never complained about it. The thing is, when she started doing the concessions, I think that was strategic on her part because it gave her a chance to be at games.”
Allen said he also took great satisfaction in coaching his sons.
“Getting a chance to coach them one year was really special,” Allen said. “And then I got to watch the grandkids come to our games, get bubble gum from the dugout, and then afterwards race around the field. And they’d help Rita in the concession stand.”
Allen said the list of other to thank was so long, he feared missing an important name in the community. But his thanks to everyone who supported the Redbirds was real.
“There’s people in the community that really support us who we can’t thank enough,” he said. “It’s also been fun over the years to have people come up to me and say, ‘You know, I used to play for the Redbirds’ or ‘My grandpa used to play for the Redbirds.’
“I thank Cindy Livingston for all of her hard work, and I need to thank Dave Englund, because he makes sure Redbird Field is well taken care of. Everyone in our organization has been critical to our success.”
But the linchpin of the Redbirds success is Allen, who did his best to avoid the spotlight — whether it was following that final game this season, or the numerous successes the Isanti Redbirds enjoyed through the years.
“I did not want to do this announcement,” he said. “I debated whether I should just wait a little bit, but the decisiveness of the decision is really important for me.
“Matter of fact, I said to Rita, ‘We do have to start scheduling some bike trips and some other stuff, because otherwise something else [with the Redbirds] is going to slide right in that time period’.”
