Ben Moore has played a lot of baseball in a lot of places.

Moore, a part-time resident and native of St. Croix Falls, has played in Joliet, Ill., and Pensacola, Fla.; Calgary and Winnipeg, in Canada; even in Columbia, South America.

“It’s all I’ve been doing,” Moore said. “I’m pretty lucky.”

Now playing with the independent-league Sioux Falls Fightin’ Pheasants, Moore will appear this week in St. Paul, as close to home as it gets, when the Pheasants take on the St. Paul Saints.

Yet as far as he has traveled, Moore credits those in and around the St. Croix River Valley for giving him his start into semi-professional baseball.

A 1999 graduate of Hudson High School, Moore began his post-school baseball career as a member of the Spring Valley (Wis.) Hawks amateur baseball team. With the team, Moore frequented Oakey Park, where he met a former Twins minor league manager and unofficial scout, Ken Staples.

Moore said Staples really helped him cement the idea of a baseball career in his head.

“Ken was really the first one to tell me I might have what it takes,” Moore said. “He said I had the potential and told me to stick with it.”

Soon after, in 2003, Moore signed with the New York Yankees organization and began playing with a Yankees-affiliated minor league club — playing against Minnesota Twins standouts Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau — and in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays farm system. He played as high as the AA level.

Moore regards himself as a control-and-command pitcher, relying on accuracy to get batters out. He throws three pitches: a curveball, a fastball and an off-speed pitch.

Moore suffered an injury some time ago that took some of the edge off his fastball, causing him to adjust his game.

“I had to learn those (pitches) after I got hurt,” he said.

Moore’s baseball career has been a whirlwind adventure that has been surprisingly more grounded in familiarity, if not reality, than one might imagine.

“Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve never not known someone,” Moore said. “In Colombia my first year, I knew like six or seven of the guys.”

Now with an affiliate of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball league, Moore is currently in his third season with the Pheasants, having recently signed another contract with the ballclub.

In the last two seasons, Moore threw 126.1 innings of baseball, posting a 5-9 record and a 5.27 earned runs average. He struck out a league-high 101 batters, according to the Pheasants Web site.

Moore said he plans to keep playing baseball “as long as I can do well.”

“I’m just trying to continue to do well, and that’s about it,” Moore said.

After he hangs it up, Moore may consider coaching baseball as a career.

Moore completed his degree in biochemistry from Viterbo University in 2008, though he admits he isn’t sure how his degree might fit in. He may pursue a master’s degree in sports management, to help him get a collegiate coaching job.

As for returning to the upper Midwest to play the St. Paul Saints, Moore is looking forward to playing in front of his father, Robert Moore, and other family members who live in the Dresser area.

“[The Saints crowd is] a really good baseball audience to play in front of,” Moore said.

Other than an ice-fishing trip or two on Deer Lake, it’s as close to home as he gets these days.

Moore and the Fightin’ Pheasants will play in the Twin Cities this week against the St. Paul Saints July 28-31. All games begin at 7:05 p.m. Visit www.saintsbaseball.com/tickets for ticket information.