Stew Thornley has been involved with baseball since his childhood growing up in the shadow of the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus, where his mother taught library sciences.

While playing at Marshall High, Thornely was the bat boy for some of Dick Siebert’s Big Ten-winning Gophers baseball teams. He has written more than 20 books on baseball, mostly about the game’s presence in Minnesota, and since 2007 has been an official scorer for Twins games.

Closest to his heart, however, are the places the game is played.

“I love ballparks,” said Thornley, who lives in Roseville.

That’s why Thornley and his colleagues in the Halsey Hall chapter of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) have worked to get plaques up at the sites of long-gone local diamonds: one at the site where the original St. Paul Saints played on Lexington Parkway, another on Nicollet in Minneapolis where the minor-league Millers once played.

The next one, Thornley hopes, will be where he works as a communications specialist for the State Department of Health, or at least near it. That building is on part of the land of what was known officially as Down Town Ballpark, also known as “the Pillbox” for its once-small footprint on the northern edge of downtown St. Paul.

The area is now home to the state Agricultural and Health Laboratory and a parking garage. The Pillbox was a square stadium with no seating in the outfield, built quickly in 1903 at the corner of 12th and Robert streets and below a part of Summit Avenue that no longer exists.

“It was just a grandstand but it must have been nice. You could see the Capitol being built, and behind the centerfield corner was Central Park,” Thornley said. “The Mechanic Arts school was right across Roberts Street.”

‘A cozy little ballpark’

Thornley estimates there have been about eight professional ballparks in St. Paul, the most recent being CHS Field, home to the Twins Class AAA team, in Lowertown. The Down Town Ballpark was unique.

“It was a cozy little ballpark,” Thornley said, “and like many were, it was made quickly of wood and aluminum. They didn’t last long. If they didn’t burn down, they would rust.”

In use from 1903-10, the stadium was called the “Pillbox” because it was so small, just 201 feet from home plate to the right field wall, and about 280 down the left field line,” according to researcher Jim Hinman. Home runs weren’t awarded for hitting a ball over the fence; batters instead had to reach a pole positioned beyond it. Balls hit over the right field fence were generally ruled ground-rule doubles

The Saints, eager to play some games closer to downtown than Lexington Park farther north, played there. But maybe most of its history comes from Black baseball. The St. Paul Gophers and a team called the Minneapolis Keystone Tigers played there, and in 1909 the park was host to the unofficial Black baseball championship of the West when the Gophers beat hall of famer Rube Foster and the Leland Giants club out of Chicago.

That history, and public opinion, will be the primary factors in whether the Pillbox gets its own commemorative spot on the Capitol grounds, said Tina Chimuzu, planner-fellow for the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB), which is responsible for all zoning within the Capitol’s St. Paul campus.

During winters, an ice sheet was created at the “Pillbox,” a St. Paul baseball park, seen in this undated photo. The St. Paul baseball park was on the edge of downtown, near the state Capitol, at 12th and Robert Streets. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society)

After a statue of Columbus was torn down by protestors in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board — responsible for all zoning within the Capitol’s St. Paul campus — changed its application process, said Erik Cedarleaf Dahl, CAAPB’s executive secretary.

The focus isn’t on the form a commemoration might take but “the story and the connection to Minnesotans and the history of Minnesota, and how it helps tell the story of Minnesota’s diversity and history,” he said.

If approved, the Halsey Hall SABR chapter will be responsible for raising the money to create and maintain a CAAPB design that might include a statewide competition. Ultimately, Dahl said. it will become state property, “And we maintain it in perpetuity.”

A swing in Stillwater

In Washington County, Brent Peterson is trying to get a plaque on the site of a baseball field still in use to commemorate the diamond on which Bud Fowler played as a member of the 1884 Stillwater Loggers. The “old athletic field” at Orleans and Sixth Avenue is owned by the school district.

“They have been somewhat open to the idea of something there, but they had questions about maintenance and liability,” said Peterson, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society. “So, it’s kind of in limbo.”

One of the first Black professional baseball players, Fowler was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022. Raised in Cooperstown, N.Y., Fowler started his career playing in the eastern United States and Canada.

“In 1884, he stopped in what was known as the Northwestern League and played on the Stillwater team,” Peterson said. “That was really the first place that got people talking about him across the country, because of the local newspaper coverage.”

The team folded that season, but Fowler played more than 50 games for the Loggers before moving on. Later, he tried to start an all-Black league but couldn’t raise enough capital and died in 1913 of consumption before the first Negro League was started — by Foster — in 1920.

Peterson said he plans to resume his conversation with the school district this spring.

“Seventy years later, Bud Grant played for the Loggers,” he said of the longtime Minnesota Vikings coach. “That’s two hall of farmers, in different sports, of course, who played there. I’m open to something that celebrates both Buds.”

How to comment

The CAAPB is accepting comments from the public until 4:30 p.m. May 5 on whether all of the conditions in Minnesota Rules 2400.2703 Subpart 2 have been met for the board to consider the Pillbox application. Comments can be sent to CAAPB planner Tina Chimuzu via email at Tina.Chimuzu@state.mn.us or through the post at Freeman Building, 625 Robert St. N., St. Paul, MN 5515.

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By DAVID RISING and HAU DINH

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) — Hamburger Hill, Hue, the Ia Drang Valley, Khe Sanh: Some remember the Vietnam War battles from the headlines of the 1960s and 1970s, others from movies and history books. And thousands of Americans and Vietnamese know them as the graveyards of loved ones who died fighting more than a half-century ago.

Today the battlefields of Vietnam are sites of pilgrimage for veterans from both sides who fought there, and tourists wanting to see firsthand where the war was waged.

“It was a war zone when I was here before,” reflected U.S. Army veteran Paul Hazelton as he walked with his wife through the grounds of the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, which was known as Saigon when he served there.

Hazelton’s tour just shy of his 80th birthday took him back for the first time to places he served as a young draftee, including Hue, the former Phu Bai Combat Base on the city’s outskirts, and Da Nang, which was a major base for both American and South Vietnamese forces.

“Everywhere you went, you know, it was occupied territory with our military, now you just see the hustle and bustle and the industry, and it’s remarkable,” he said.

“I’m just glad that we’re now trading and friendly with Vietnam. And I think both sides are benefiting from it.”

The history and the museum recounting it

Vietnam’s war with the United States lasted for nearly 20 years from 1955 to 1975, with more than 58,000 Americans killed and many times that number of Vietnamese.

For Vietnam, it started almost immediately after the nearly decadelong fight to expel the colonial French, who were supported by Washington, which culminated with the decisive defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The end of French Indochina meant major changes in the region, including the partitioning of Vietnam into Communist North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and U.S.-aligned South Vietnam.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong guerrilla troops, and the 30th anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam.

Tourism has rebounded rapidly since the COVID-19 pandemic and is now a critical driver of Vietnam’s growth, the fastest in the region, accounting for roughly one in nine jobs in the country. Vietnam had more than 17.5 million foreign visitors in 2024, close to the record 18 million set in 2019 before the pandemic.

The War Remnants Museum attracts some 500,000 visitors a year, about two-thirds of whom are foreigners. Its exhibits focus on American war crimes and atrocities like the My Lai massacre and the devastating effects of Agent Orange, a defoliant widely used during the war.

The U.S. was to open the first exhibit of its own at the museum this year, detailing Washington’s extensive efforts to remediate wartime damage, but it is indefinitely on hold after the Trump administration slashed foreign aid.

Other wartime sites in Saigon, which was the capital of South Vietnam, include the South Vietnamese president’s Independence Palace where North Vietnamese tanks famously crashed through the gates as they took the city and the Rex Hotel where the U.S. held press briefings derisively dubbed the Five O’clock Follies for their paucity of credible information.

On the northern outskirts of the city are the Cu Chi tunnels, an underground warren used by Viet Cong guerrillas to avoid detection from American planes and patrols, which attracts some 1.5 million people annually.

Today visitors can climb and crawl through some of the narrow passages and take a turn at a firing range shooting targets with war-era weapons like the AK-47, M-16 and the M-60 machine gun known as “the pig” by American troops for its bulky size and high rate of fire.

“I can understand a bit better now how the war took place, how the Vietnamese people managed to fight and protect themselves,” said Italian tourist Theo Buono after visiting the site while waiting for others in his tour group to finish at the firing range.

Former North Vietnamese Army artilleryman Luu Van Duc remembers the fighting firsthand, but his visit to the Cu Chi tunnels with a group of other veterans provided an opportunity to see how their allies with the Viet Cong lived and fought.

“I’m so moved visiting the old battlefields — it was my last dying wish to be able to relive those hard but glorious days together with my comrades,” the 78-year-old said.

“Relics like this must be preserved so the next generations will know about their history, about the victories over much stronger enemies.”

Outside the city

The former Demilitarized Zone where the country was split between North and South in Quang Tri province saw the heaviest fighting during the war, and drew more than 3 million visitors in 2024.

On the north side of the DMZ, visitors can walk through the labyrinthine Vinh Moc tunnel complex, where civilians took shelter from bombs that the U.S. dropped in an effort to disrupt supplies to the North Vietnamese.

The tunnels, along with a memorial and small museum at the border, can be reached on a day trip from Hue, which typically also includes a stop at the former Khe Sanh combat base, the site of a fierce battle in 1968 in which both sides claimed victory.

Today, Khe Sanh boasts a small museum and some of the original fortifications, along with tanks, helicopters and other equipment left by U.S. forces after their withdrawal.

Hue itself was the scene of a major battle during the Tet Offensive in 1968, one of the longest and most intense of the war. Today the city’s ancient Citadel and Imperial City, a UNESCO site on the north bank of the Perfume River, still bears signs of the fierce fighting but has largely been rebuilt. West of Hue, a little off the beaten path near the border with Laos, is Hamburger Hill, the scene of a major battle in 1969.

About 500 kilometers (300 miles) to the southwest near the Cambodian border is the Ia Drang valley, where the first major engagement between American and North Vietnamese forces was fought in 1965.

Fighting in North Vietnam was primarily an air war, and today the Hoa Lo Prison museum tells that story from the Vietnamese perspective.

Sardonically dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” by inmates, the former French prison in Hanoi was used to hold American prisoners of war, primarily pilots shot down during bombing raids. Its most famous resident was the late Sen. John McCain after he was shot down in 1967.

“It was kind of eerie but fascinating at the same time,” said Olivia Wilson, a 28-year-old from New York, after a recent visit.

“It’s an alternative perspective on the war.”

Rising reported from Bangkok.

By CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A woman in Australia unknowingly gave birth to a stranger’s baby after she received another patient’s embryo from her in vitro fertilization clinic due to “human error,” the clinic said.

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The mix-up was discovered in February when the clinic in the city of Brisbane found that the birth parents had one too many embryos in storage, said the provider, Monash IVF, in a statement supplied Friday. Staff discovered an embryo from another patient had been mistakenly thawed and transferred to the birth mother, a spokesperson said.

Australia news outlets reported the baby was born in 2024. Monash IVF didn’t confirm how old the child was.

The company, one of Australia’s biggest IVF providers, said an initial investigation had not uncovered any other such errors. Its statement didn’t identify the patients involved or divulge details about the child’s custody.

“All of us at Monash IVF are devastated and we apologise to everyone involved,” said CEO Michael Knaap. “We will continue to support the patients through this extremely distressing time.”

The “human error” was made “despite strict laboratory safety protocols being in place,” the statement said. The company said it had reported the episode to the relevant regulator in the state of Queensland.

Monash IVF opened in 1971 and sees patients in dozens of locations throughout Australia. Last year, the firm settled a class-action lawsuit from more than 700 patients, making no admission of liability, after claims its clinics destroyed potentially viable embryos.

The clinic paid a settlement of 56 million Australian dollars ($35 million).

Rare cases of embryo mix-ups have been reported before, including in the United States, Britain, Israel and Europe. A woman in the U.S. state of Georgia in February filed a lawsuit against a fertility clinic after she gave birth to a stranger’s baby.

Krystena Murray realized the error after the baby’s birth because she and her sperm donor were both white and the child was Black. Murray said she wanted to raise the baby but voluntarily gave the 5-month-old to his biological parents after she was told she would not win a legal fight for his custody.

In Australia, each state makes its own laws and rules governing the use of IVF, which advocates say puts patients at risk of error or oversight failings. Queensland’s parliament passed its first laws regulating the sector in 2024.

The measures will establish a registry for all people conceived at a clinic and made the destruction of donors’ medical histories illegal. The change followed an official report that lambasted the storage of frozen sperm donations in Queensland, finding nearly half of samples checked were at medium or high risk of misidentification and recommending thousands be destroyed.

Australia’s states and territories “need to see if their regulations are up to scratch,” the Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth told the Today news program Friday.

“Confidence needs to be brought back and it’s imperative that happens.”

It was April 1 and the East Ridge High School robotics team was told that they had qualified to compete against some of the top robotics teams in the world.

But it was also April Fools Day and they thought there was no way that could be true.

“We joke with each other a lot, so we were wondering if that was an April Fool’s prank because it would not have been odd for it to have been,” East Ridge junior Audrey Bakst said.

The team was in shock once they realized it was true, Bakst said — and then the excitement began.

East Ridge High School’s robotics team, called ERRORs 3130, was invited to compete in FIRST Championship, what participants often refer to as the world competition in FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

The four-day youth robotics competition will be held April 16-19 in Houston. Students will compete against teams from around the world, including about two dozen from Minnesota, showing off the robots they’ve created as they complete action-packed challenges. Other east metro teams invited include NoMythic from St. Paul, Rogue Robotics from Farmington, Lightning Turtles from Mendota Heights, and KnightKrawler from New Brighton.

Creating a competition-worthy robot

ERRORs 3130 consists of 34 students in ninth through 12th grades. While the team is advised by adult mentors, often alumni and parents of current or former students, the team is primarily student-led.

“I think what’s so cool about our mentors is that they are there to help us when we need it, but they’re not going to tell us what to do,” Bakst said. “They teach us to fail in a safe environment and show us how to improve.”

At the start of each year, the team is given a build challenge by FIRST that explains the skills and characteristics their robot will need to compete. The team takes part in at least one preseason competition per year and at least two regular season competitions, with the goal of making it to the state tournament and FIRST Championship.

In January, ERRORs 3130 created an industrial-sized robot with the objective of being semi-autonomous, placing large PVC pipes onto multiple posts up to six feet tall, moving large playground balls into designated areas as quickly as possible and finally attaching itself to a cage. The team competed in a regional competition April 3-5, placed third at the event and set a high score during one match.

Outreach and impact

Aside from building robots, a large focus of ERRORs 3130 is community outreach, which they call ‘impact.’ The team partners with elementary and middle school youth, teaching them the mechanics of building robots and inspiring them to become interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) through FIRST Lego League.

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The students also attend community events like Woodbury Days and Movies with Mo with other robotics teams, including Woodbury High School, Math and Science Academy and Park High School, to promote robotics. ERRORs 3130 also hosts a week-long summer camp for youth.

“We want to make sure that kids know what their options are for high school and beyond,” Bakst said.

Teams recognized for their community outreach efforts are also eligible for the FIRST Impact Award, which honors a team ‘that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become science and technology leaders,’ according to FIRST. ERRORs 3130 won the award in 2023.

“FIRST values the community outreach aspect of it just as much as they value the robot,” Bakst said. “If you win the impact award, that’s like the most prestigious award at each regional, and that also qualifies you for worlds.”

Preparing them for the future

Robotics has taught the students technical skills related to engineering, as well as social and communication skills, teamwork, business and entrepreneurship, the team said.

Senior Emily Fox said that through competitions, she’s had the opportunity to network with companies like Disney, NASA, Boeing and John Deere. Once she graduates high school, Fox will attend Purdue University and major in mechanical engineering. Her dream is to work for Disney as an imagineer, she said.

“Robotics has really set me on what I want to do,” Fox said.

Team mentor Brian Howard’s daughter joined the East Ridge robotics program in 2018 and he has been a mentor for the team ever since. What he loves about the team is that it’s run like a student-led small business, he said. As a mentor, Howard said he’s there to oversee the students’ work, encourage them to learn through failure and celebrate success.

“The program itself is incredible,” Howard said. “I’ve not seen anything quite like it, and it actually changed the course of my daughter’s career. She’s currently a junior at Cal Poly, a mechanical engineering program in California, because of what she experienced here.”

Howard, who’s retiring from his role as a mentor this year, said he’s seen the students grow, adapting to new challenges and problem-solving faster than in the years prior. He said he enjoys seeing the growth in some students who come in not knowing how to use a screwdriver and leave with the skills to build a fully functioning robot.

Raising money for worlds

The cost to attend the world competition is $1,200 per student and 26 students are planning to attend, according to team mentor Melissa Cole. The students were asked to provide a $700 deposit to cover bus and registration costs.

“Ideally, we earn enough money that we do not have to ask for any more money from the families,” Cole said.

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The team is fundraising to help cover the cost of the trip. Those interested in donating can use Venmo @frcERRORs3130 or mail a check to East Ridge Robotics Foundation, Box 25641, Woodbury, MN 55125. Find more information about the team at frcerror3130.org.

For information on supporting other east metro teams, visit 2491NoMythic.com (NoMythic), team2987.com (Rogue Robots), team3100.com (Lightning Turtles) or team2052.com (KnightKrawler).

ERRORs senior Albert Wright said he wants all of the robotics teams in the state to be able to attend the competition but knows how challenging covering the cost of attendance is.

“Going to worlds is more than just a fun experience; it’s a transformative one,” Wright said. “Going to worlds my second year on the team opened my eyes to the true limitless nature of robotics and helped solidify what I feel my purpose in life is.”