AUSD’s Wood Middle School Construction And Sports Facilities Improvement Project Poses Problems For Vaunted Youth Baseball Program
By Larry Freeman
Alameda Little League, (ALL) which has nurtured thousands of Alameda youths to “Play Ball” since 1980, now finds itself in a ballgame of a very different and complex sort.
While the league looks forward to another festive Opening Day Ceremony on Saturday March 8th at its prize field next to Wood Middle School, it also faces down a fearsome fastball that will make the event the last at that location.
A robust new AUSD Sports facility and new Wood Middle School construction project, already underway, means that ALL will take a major financial and facilities hit beginning on June 30th with the loss of that field.
The construction of an all new Alameda High School Sports Complex promises to be a boon for the school’s athletes and program as AHS students have long had to cope with bare bones facilities that were, at best, adequate.
No longer, for example, with Hornet Football have to grind it out on the scruffy turf of Thompson Field.
AHS sports programs will benefit greatly with the construction of an expansive “Athletic Field” slated to be built on the bulk of the former Lum School site
Wood School students will also get a quality facilities boost with the construction of a new Gymnasium, part of the Wood School replacement project.
But those welcome additions come with an unwanted price tag that will take a substantial toll on ALL as AUSD’s plans involve the razing of one ALL baseball diamond in the near term, removal of the field’s towering field lights for night games, and the loss of on site restrooms and the revenue producing snack bar ALL built at the site for ballgame attendees and the temporary loss of a second field in a few years.
Field two, an eventual, temporary goner as well, lies just above Field One.
Ron Matthews, President of ALL since 1998, recognizes that AUSD’s “upgrades are great for the kids,” but, from his perspective, that greater good comes with a sizeable toll on ALL and the community segment it serves.
In a way, the situation, as it currently stands, pits building fields of dreams for top notch sports facilities for Wood Middle School, Alameda High School and AUSD against a field of losses for ALL, a renowned, long established community service organization that has been part of Alameda’s sinews since 1980.
WHAT ALL DOES AND HOW THEY DID IT
ALL currently operates and maintains six diamonds in Alameda to accommodate the 900 or so young ballplayers it draws each year from all around the island community, and it is scrambling to find a way to cope with the impending hard hit to its program.
In the near term, beginning on June 30th of this year, ALL will lose Field One, its primary home-base field which lies adjacent to Wood Middle School’s P.E. and student quad area.
During the latter part of the five year AUSD construction timeline, Matthews says that ALL will lose its second field at the site for a year or so while AUSD builds them a replacement field.
Coping with that sinker is bad enough, but the real swing and a miss will be the demolition of Field One’s snack bar which will become the site of a new gym for Wood Middle School.
The snack bar’s demise, also slated for 6/30 of this year, will create an annual revenue shortfall of about $25,000 to $30,000 for ALL, about 9% to 13% of their annual revenue which runs about $230,000 per year.
The operation sells “a lot of slushies on those hot days,” along with other ‘take me out to the ballgame’ fare according to Matthews.
Those funds help ALL to offset rises in participation fees, but that may have to change in the near future, he added.
For Matthews, the sting is even greater as ALL built the snack bar and restroom facility from its own funds.
IT WILL SOON BE “LIGHTS OUT’ FOR NIGHT TIME BASEBALL
Another dark spot is that ALL invested in night game field lights five years ago at a cost to them of about $250,000, said Matthews.
Those enhancements will be part of the upcoming tear down of Field One, and they represent a major chunk of the $1,000,000 or so that ALL has invested in fields and field improvements over the past 25 years.
“We’ve paid our dues,” says Matthews.
For its part, AUSD has promised to store ALL’s five 70 foot tall towers and lights, but they may or may not ever be used again, as CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) requirements will force ALL to again seek local resident approval before they can be reinstalled.
The loss of Field One leaves ALL with the added problem, as yet unresolved, as to where to make up for the loss of one of their diamonds.
It troubles Matthews and ALL leadership that they built four of the six Little League Diamonds in Alameda, two at Rittler Park and two at Wood Middle School, with those fields situated in close proximity.
Having “contiguous fields” as now exists with those at Wood and neighboring Rittler Park makes monitoring crowd behavior, field maintenance and scheduling matters much easier, said Matthews.
In addition to the challenging logistics of balancing AUSD student athlete gains against the losses to a smaller community sports group, is the uncertainty of how all will finally settle out.
It will be at least five years until completion of the massive project of building a new school, relocating it to temporary facilities, impacting ALL fields and building a new AHS Sports Complex.
In a short statement on its website, AUSD describes the upcoming matter only as such:
“It’s likely that the league (ALL) will able to rent another field from the City.
After construction, it’s possible that the current Wood School field can be reconfigured into a multi-use field that accommodates baseball, but the design team will need to decide what configuration of fields will work best for WMS students. “
That does not make Matthews rest any easier.
Presumably, said Matthews, ALL will have to come up with another $30,000 or so to rent a temporary replacement ball field from Alameda Parks And Recreation Department (ARPD) -an agency of The City Of Alameda—0 adding another layer of difficulty with respect to resolving a situation that began with a collaborative, “bona fide partnership” with AUSD.
“It’s been a win-win for so many years,” said Matthews who well knows the hard part of running a local baseball operation where its fields are considered a “prestige location that has hosted the State Championships for 12 year olds and has been recognized as one of the top facilities in the nation.”
ALL and AUSD last met in December, and Alameda Neighborhoods News is seeking an interview with Alameda’s Superintendent of Schools, Pasquale Scuderi to get his perspective on the matter.
Matthews said, in an earlier interview, that Scuderi is “very sympathetic” to the problem, and complimented him for his attentive engagement in discussions with ALL.
Just as is ALL, “ AUSD is 100% for students”, said Matthews, realizing that the game is well underway and that time and limited options put ALL behind in the count as of now.
COMING SOON: PART TWO, A DEEPER LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ALL, AUSD, AND THE CITY OF ALAMEDA