IDAHO FALLS — The Idaho Falls Chukars have players from California to Florida, Iceland to Italy, and those players don’t exactly make enough to afford what amounts to a summer home. That’s where host families come in.
Roughly 15 local families allow bedrooms in their homes to be used by players during the season, according to General Manager Chris Hall. One of those families is the Nash family — Mike and Amanda.
The Nashes have been welcoming Chukars players — and most recently, a broadcaster — into their home the past four seasons, something Amanda called “an honor.”
“I’m glad that we got into it when we did,” she said. “We didn’t understand what an opportunity it would be.”
The Nashes are longtime Chukars fans, attending games regularly for over 20 years. In fact, Mike proposed to Amanda at Melaleuca Field.
Four years ago, Mike happened upon a Facebook ad with applications for Chukars host families, and with two bedrooms in their home left vacant after their adult children had moved out, they decided to apply.
In the years and seasons since, the Nashes have welcomed players from all over the world.
This season, they are hosting relief pitcher Austyn Coleman, infielders Simon Baumgardt and Garret Ostrander, and radio color analyst Ben Pokorny.
Ostrander, who hails from southern California, said the Nashes are “100%” like a second family for him, adding that he has the same conversations with Mike and Amanda as he does with his real parents back home.
“My parents — my host parents are the best,” said Ostrander, currently batting .446 having collected four hits, including his first PBL homer Tuesday night in Grand Junction, Colorado. “I love it there. They make this experience even better.”
The Nashes do their best to provide as comfortable a home setting as possible. They do the grocery shopping, making sure the home is stocked with all the normal foods plus those items specially requested by the players, and help the players in whatever way possible to ease their home life.
“We want them to feel like this is their home, and they don’t have to worry about anything but baseball,” Amanda said.
Ostrander described the Nashes and their home as being “very comforting.”
“There’s a lot of things that you don’t think about,” he said. “… They just take all that trouble away, so we can focus on what we need to focus on: playing baseball and getting better.”
According to Hall, players pay $300 a month to stay with a host family, though some of the players choose to find their own place. Payments are taken directly from the players’ paycheck and provided to the host family by the team.
Three hundred dollars is not nearly enough to pay rent for even the smallest apartment — much less pay for groceries, laundry, etc. And apartments don’t come with families more than willing to welcome the player as one of their own.
Pokorny said bluntly, he would not have returned for his second season with the club had it not been for the Nashes. Like Ostrander, the broadcaster said that Mike and Amanda are “100%” a second family to him.
“I’ve said this to (the Nashes), I’ve said this to my mom and dad back home, my girlfriend, that if it wasn’t for them being an option to live with this year, I would not be back,” Pokorny said, adding that the Nashes impact his life daily. “To know that I have a home, a bed, makes it an entirely different ballgame. It’s a lot to come out here and give up family … to be able to get that in small doses from (the Nashes) is make-or-break for me.”
Pokorny, from Barrington, Ill., said that he had some offers from other baseball organizations during the offseason, and that the Nashes played a huge role in his decision to make the long drive from the midwest to Idaho for the 2025 PBL season.
He found his own place last year, and after a long summer of traveling and calling games, returned home having “just about broke even.”
“You can only support yourself and get by by breaking even for so long,” he said. “To have a host family who’s willing to not only house you for such a low cost, but to also go above and beyond like the Nashes do, it’s unbelievable.”
The Nashes are at just about every Chukars home game, missing their first in years earlier this season. They also attend road games whenever it is possible — usually in either Boise or Ogden, Utah.
Mike, a lifelong sports fans, spoke about the benefits to being a host family — which he said are “bountiful.”
Being a lover of the game, he enjoys sitting around with the players and talking ball. After games, he said, games that the players just played and he just watched, he’ll join as the guys “dissect” the game.
“You learn so much. It’s just mind-blowing, how much goes on in baseball,” he said.
Amanda has a bit more of a motherly take on the experience.
She sees the players as her extended family, sons with whom she shares this short chapter in their baseball journey.
“It sounds silly to say that we’re proud of them, because we have nothing to do with them, but we are proud of them,” she said.
Taking the players on as kin, though, does set the Nashes up for one big negative.
“It’s hard when they leave, even though we know their journey is continuing,” Amanda said. “No matter how small our part is in this journey that they’re on, we love it. The highlight is keeping in touch with them.”
Past players, she said, still send cards and texts for mothers and fathers day, and some still refer to them as “Mama and Papa Nash.”
“They become part of your family,” Amanda added.
At the end of the season, the players will leave. Some will return and be right back at the Nash home, spending late nights talking ball with Mike or sharing laughs with Amanda. Others will not, moving on to other things or hanging up their cleats.
When the extended Nash family ballplayers do finally leave Idaho Falls for the final time, they take with them memories — not just of the Chukars and Pioneer Baseball League, but of Mike and Amanda Nash.
And the Nashes will keep those memories as well.
Mike said that there were “for sure” some nerves when they welcomed their first Chukar into their home.
“Now I can’t imagine ever not doing it,” he added. “The rewards of getting to know these kids, and loving them like they were our own, it’s just amazing.”
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