Harris Baseball/Softball: the township league and its own ground

By 2015–2026 documented · Harris Park, 52150 Currant Road

The largest sporting institution seated in Granger is a youth league with its own ballpark: Harris Baseball Softball Inc., of P.O. Box 62, Granger, runs the baseball and softball of Harris Township from a multi-field complex at 52150 Currant Road, at the township's northern edge, that the league and its visitors call Harris Park. The fields are numbered in the league's own postings to at least six — Fields 1 through 4 carry the main ground, with machine-pitch play on Fields 5 and 6 — and the program runs the full suburban ladder: coach-pitch and machine-pitch beginnings, live-pitch divisions, all-star teams in the summer, fall sessions in September and October (in 2026, Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons, September 2 to October 14, run in a deliberately informal, sandlot style by the league's own announcement), and travel arms playing under the Harris name — the Harris Heat and the Harris Thunder appear in tournament play across the region, and the Heat has stood in the federal nonprofit record as its own Granger entry since 2016. The league the children join is remembered by an older name in the press of record: when the South Bend Tribune published a Granger coach's obituary in February 2015, it recorded that he had coached "many of his sons' teams at the Harris Township Little League" and served on the league's executive board — the league's earlier style, carried here exactly as the paper printed it. The corporation that now runs the league stands in the IRS-derived directories with an exemption dated November 2018, a directory fact about the present corporation, not a founding date for the league; the league's own founding year is a named gap at the end of this article.

Its summer tournament is the league's claim on the state's calendar: in July 2018 the Rensselaer Republican, following a visiting team from DeMotte, reported from Granger on the Harris Baseball and Softball tournament — teams from 8-and-under to 18-and-under, in a competition the paper said "bills itself as one of the oldest Softball competitions in the state," the billing printed here as the tournament's own, carried by the press. The visiting Comets lost pool games to the Harris Heat, 14–6, and the Harris Thunder, 8–4, beat the Heat 16–6 in bracket play, and fell 11–6 to Mishawaka East End — the scores printed because they are the tournament's surviving box record in the press reached, and because they fix the league's scale: a township league whose summer tournament draws teams from across northern Indiana and beats and loses to them in print. Tournament play still anchors the complex's year: the league's own postings record Bash Tournaments' Spooky Halloween Bash returning to Harris Park in the fall of 2026.

The ground is being rebuilt under the league as this section is written: in the fall of 2026 the league closed Fields 1–4 to all practices, games, and recreational play for a field-improvement project — releveling the playing surfaces field by field, with home plates, pitching rubbers, and bases to be reinstalled and the batter's boxes and mounds rebuilt — the turf work done by Hydroseed / RZ Sports Turf, on the league's own postings, and the four main fields held out of play until the 2027 spring season so the new surfaces can settle. A league that can take its four main diamonds out of service for a full fall and winter to rebuild them is a league with depth behind the closure; the fact is printed as the measure of the institution's present state, dated October–November 2026. Travel softball of the next level up also seats in the place at line size: the Midwest USSSA Pride, a girls' travel softball organization, lists itself in Granger in the team directories, at directory strength.

Named gap — the founding: the league's founding year, the construction date and financing of the Currant Road complex, and the date and terms on which the Harris Township Little League became the present Harris Baseball Softball Inc. (and whether a Little League charter was ever held or surrendered) could not be settled from any source first-hand; the league publishes no history of itself. The gap stands with its settling sources: the league's own minute books and incorporation file; Little League International's charter records for the South Bend-area districts; and the South Bend Tribune's archive, in the runs held by the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library and the St. Joseph County Public Library.

Sources:

1. Harris Baseball Softball (harrisbaseballsoftball.com), the league's own site and postings, read November 2026 (registration and fall-session announcements, September–October 2026; the field-improvement notices and field closures to the 2027 spring season; the Bash Tournaments Halloween Bash posting; field numbering to Fields 5/6).
2. Rensselaer Republican via Newsbug, "KV Comets show grit to win 8U tournament," July 2018 (the Harris tournament's 8U–18U span; the "one of the oldest Softball competitions in the state" billing; the Harris Heat, Harris Thunder, and Mishawaka East End scores).
3. South Bend Tribune obituary of Russell George Ohlson II, published February 5, 2015, via Legacy.com (coaching at "the Harris Township Little League"; service on the league's executive board; memorials directed to Harris Baseball/Softball, P.O. Box 62, Granger).
4. IRS-derived nonprofit directories (TaxExemptWorld's Granger listings), read November 2026 (Harris Baseball Softball Inc., P.O. Box 62, Granger; exemption dated November 2018; Harris Heat — Dralle, Granger, December 2016) — directory strength only.
5. SelectBaseballTeams directory (Midwest USSSA Pride, Granger, Indiana), read November 2026 — directory strength only.