Hayfield — and baseball —  feel like home to Nelson

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Ben Nelson, who will graduate Friday from Hayfield High School, took his senior photos with some of the jerseys he’s worn throughout his high school career. He plans to attend RCTC to play baseball, then become a special education teacher.

Ben Nelson’s parents weren’t Hayfield natives, but he sees their move to town as the best decision they could have made.
His father, Jon, was going to be a pilot, but when that didn’t work out, he instead landed a job at Hormel, in Austin — then later moved his growing young family to Hayfield.
After settling into the small town, joining the volunteer fire department and coaching his sons’ teams in baseball, Jon was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive cancer called NUT carcinoma.
The tight-knit community of Hayfield did what all small towns do best: they rallied and cared for the family.
“The community was awesome,” said Nelson, who will graduate Friday with the class of 2026.
But the cancer was so rare, it was the first time Mayo Clinic doctors had seen a patient with it.
Nelson lost his father to cancer in September 2012, just a few months after the diagnosis. He was five years old.
Though he was young, Nelson remembered how the community cared for him and his brothers, along with his mother, who had lost her husband — her high school sweetheart.
“One of the things that I don’t know if I’ll ever forget was, probably a year or two prior to my dad dying, we were at a friend’s house, and… they’re having lasagna and chocolate cake or something, and (Jon) jokingly said, like, ‘When I die, this is what I want at my funeral.’
“And then he died, and two years later, at his funeral, that lady showed up with lasagna and chocolate cake,” Nelson said.
The community helped in the family’s darkest times, and continued to do so for years. Nelson, looking back all these years later, is grateful.
Love of baseball
The Nelson family loves baseball, something Jon’s sons got from their father. So when he died, one of Holli Nelson’s biggest worries was being able to juggle the schedule of four boys who were born across a decade.
But the community was there for the Nelson family.
“I don’t know if there’s ever been a time in my life where I’ve been late to practice, because there’s always people that have stepped up and offered,” Nelson said. “To get us there, bring us to games, stuff like that.”
One of Jon Nelson’s favorite traditions was taking his boys to the Twins’ home opener every year.
It’s a tradition that continued even after his death. The family missed one — during the COVID-19 pandemic — but were able to make it to Milwaukee for the Brewers’ home opener instead.
“My mom always makes sure that we’re there,” Nelson said. “We’ve expanded the tradition to (include) my brother’s wife … and now I have a nephew, so he goes too.”
After Jon’s diagnosis, the family traveled to Boston, because “that’s where they thought they had the best chance of curing him,” Nelson said.
While there, they attended a Red Sox game. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for one of the Nelson boys’ with a goal of hoping to brighten an otherwise grim situation.
Instead, Jon died the day before.
The family went to the game — a tribute, of sorts, to the man who loved baseball, and inspired their own love of baseball.
It included a tour of Fenway Park, which is known for having visitors in right field sign the Pesky Pole, but the Nelson family got to do something a little bit different.
In what is usually reserved for professional baseball players or top brass in the game, the Nelson family got to sign Jon’s name inside the iconic Green Monster.
One person who got to see the Nelson boys grow up on the baseball diamond was Hayfield head baseball coach Kasey Krekling.
Ben Nelson said he always looked up to his coaches as father figures.
“Life dealt Ben the short straw with the early death of his father, but you would never know that if you interacted with him,” Krekling said. “He is such a great person and teammate. His mom deserves a lot of credit, juggling four boys by herself.
“Ben’s older brothers (Zach and Brady) also deserve a lot of credit, as they aren’t only Ben’s big brothers. They have filled that void of someone to look up to,” he said. “I know Jon is looking down on his family and very proud of what they have all accomplished since he left earth.”
Ben Nelson’s love for baseball, like the rest of his family’s, “is very evident,” his coach said.
“He lives at the baseball field, and is always happy to help around the field in any capacity needed,” Krekling said. “He is a joy to coach because he is always doing what he is supposed to be doing and works his tail off to be the best he can be.”
One of Nelson’s favorite high school memories was when the team won the section championship. He was the starting pitcher; before the game, he sat at the cemetery for a little while.
He wanted to make sure he had a moment with his father before pitching in the biggest game of his career.
Plans after high school
About a decade ago, when Hayfield Community Schools moved all operations entirely to Hayfield, Nelson met Seth Pack, a widely popular kid from Brownsdale who has Down Syndrome.
“When the merger happened, he was in my (elementary) class, and since then we’ve kind of just been best friends,” Nelson said.
Working with special education students has always been in the back of his mind.
His oldest brother, Zach, is a special education teacher for Hayfield, and for the past year Ben has helped out in his classroom one period a day.
“That’s been the thing since I was young,” Nelson said. “I’ve always been intrigued by special education, and then this year I started realizing I could actually do it, for a future career.”
Next year he will attend Rochester Community Technical College to play baseball and get his general education credits.
After RCTC, Nelson said he will likely won’t go too far to earn his teaching degree, and will focus on becoming a special education teacher.
After all, Hayfield is his hometown. The Class of 2026 recently got its senior superlatives, and he was voted most likely to stay in Hayfield.
“I mean, this is my hometown,” Nelson said. “Both my brothers live here. I’ve grown up here. The community has done so much for me and I, I just feel like I couldn’t leave it.”

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The Nelson family’s love for baseball stemmed from Jon Nelson, whose four sons were fans from a young age. Jon, seated, died of cancer in 2012, leaving behind, from left, Zachary, Ryan and Ben (on Jon’s lap), and Brady. Ben Nelson will graduate from HHS with the Class of 2026. 

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The tradition of attending the Minnesota Twins’ home opener baseball team continues for the growing Nelson family, more than 13 years after Jon Nelson’s death. In the center is Ben Nelson, who spent time at his dad’s gravesite before pitching in the section championship — which Hayfield won. The latest addition, Brooks Jon Nelson, joined the family for his inaugural season.