Every baseball season has a box score. It tells you who pitched, who hit, who won. However, once a month I want to talk about the people behind the box score, the people who actually make the game tick. Welcome to this week’s Friday Feature and our 1st article on my Invisible Roster, that I hope will make the people I discuss just a bit more visible for their pitches and hits behind the scenes of baseball.
So, let me tell you about this edition’s roster members: Dave and Katie Ankermann.
Dave and Katie both grew up in the Lethbridge area. They’ve been married for over 30 years and raised three boys — Mitchell, Nicholas, and Lukas — right here in Lethbridge. The boys fell in love with baseball at a young age, and their parents followed them every step of the way: through Little League, through American Legion, through College and Summer College baseball. Both parents were active by serving on committees, driving to games, volunteering on boards, serving meals, maintaining facilities, and of course, Katie’s love of working BINGO! Whatever the program needed, they jumped in with both hands and both feet.
I met the Ankermanns as the boys came up through everything our city offered: Norcrest and Lethbridge North Little Leagues and the Big League Giants, then the Lethbridge Miners and Elks, then all of them went onto Prairie Baseball Academy, and all three got some opportunity to be connected to the Western Canadian Baseball League. What Dave and Katie instilled in all three was a sense of community, and although this article is not about the boys themselves, I would be remiss in not mentioning a couple of things. I got to spend a couple of weeks travelling the eastern U.S. baseball parks including Yankee Stadium, Cooperstown, Lamade Stadium in Williamsport, and more with the only Yankee fan in the Ankermann family, Nick. I left the ever loving Blue Jays, A’s, and (recently annihilated by those same Yankees) Red Sox fans behind so it was a truly pleasant trip. (I digress but those who know me will not be surprised at the Yankee insert into an article about Dave and Katie!!) In any event, I did want to celebrate all three boys now turned to fine men as they continue to contribute to our baseball community today. Whether it be coaching at Catholic Central High School, or in Little League and American Legion programs, or serving on the PBA Alumni Board, or being characters in their parents’ annual obsession, they follow well in Dave and Katie’s footprints.
I got to know Katie when she was helping out with the Lethbridge North Little League board. It didn’t take long to see she was something special — strong values, completely aligned with everything our programs stand for – community, trust, respect, loyalty, and hard work. She became a trusted volunteer on the Little League District board. I subsequently asked her to serve as an executive member of the Western Canadian Baseball League. And for years she was a cornerstone worker at the Junior Little League Canadian Championship, hosted here in Lethbridge every year from 2010 to 2025 and, of course, is on the committee for the Little League Canadian Championship being held here in 2027 in conjunction with Lethbridge and Southern Alberta’s 75th anniversary in Little League. And did I mention she LOVES BINGO!! She not only helps District 1 but also assists the Longhorns and Prairie Baseball Academy raise money through bingo. So if Katie’s fascination at times is bingo, I believe Dave’s fixation and outright obsession is everything associated with ghosts, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Freddy Krueger, Psycho, vampires….. I think you get the picture.
In 2017, several of us from District 1 attended the Little League International Congress in New Orleans. While Katie and I were in seminars, Dave was out scouting the graveyards of New Orleans. Yes, you heard that right – the graveyards. That’s when I learned just how fascinated Dave is with the supernatural — especially Halloween.
Somewhere along the way, a wild idea surfaced in discussions: Why not build a haunted house at Spitz Stadium and call it the Field of Screams! Well, 5 years later and here we are. THE OBSESSION CONTINUES!!
Hours of planning, shopping, preparing, constructing, designing — and the Field of Screams was born.
As mentioned, this year is its fifth year, and due to Dave’s ongoing love of this project, it gets bigger and better every single year. Katie is there by his side each day and assists with all things Field of Screams as well. Also, attached loyally to the project is Tony Ankermann, Dave’s brother, and his kids, and as previously mentioned, Mitch, Nick, and Lukas (when he’s in town from Saskatoon) are not far away from a costume or a way to scare someone. Thanks to the thoughtful care Dave and Katie pour into it, it’s also a fundraiser supporting the student-athletes who come to Lethbridge to play baseball — and I can tell you, it does exceptionally well, growing every year.
So if you get to check out the Field of Screams this year, keep your eyes open for Dave and Katie which probably won’t be that difficult as you jump out of your skin at this newest Lethbridge October tradition.
That’s the thing about the invisible roster. Nobody chants their names. There’s no plaque, no stat line. But without Dave and Katie Ankermann, there is no Field of Screams and there is a void in a lot of other places — in addition, a lot of young ballplayers’ time in Lethbridge looks very different.
So this one’s for them. THANK YOU!! – Dave and Katie. Happy Halloween!!
Published: October 2, 2026
