Cherished Ball Field Hosts Final Game At Special Ceremony As Wheels Of AUSD Progress Turn
By Ben Wiley, ANN Student Intern and Youth Writer
A Major change in the game plan has arrived for Alameda Little League (ALL) as the nonprofit program that has nurtured thousands of young baseball players aged 4-to-12 since the1980 weathers a massive shakeup from construction now underway for new Wood Middle School (WMS) and Alameda High School sports facilities.
ALL’s prized Field #1, –the only Little League field in town equipped with ALL purchased tower lights for night games– is being demolished as the Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) moves forward to build a brand new WMS Gymnasium at that very spot, a key part of its plan to modernize the aged middle school.
These tides of change have caused ALL to take some significant losses to their generally winning, long-established game plan.
In a statement to ANN, AUSD Superintendent Pasquale Scuderi recognized the impact on ALL’s having to give way to new school facilities needs saying, “ Students in the Wood Middle School zone – and the thousands that will attend the school in the coming years – urgently need a campus that is safe, modern, inviting, and equipped to provide a 21st-century education. Creating that campus will indeed require us to close “Field 1” on AUSD property.” adding, “AUSD appreciates the support and coaching that Alameda Little League has provided for Alameda children who want to play baseball over the years. We are also grateful for the longstanding partnership we have had with the League.”
That partnership has undergone some strains as negotiations to try to find a solution to preserve or replace Field #1 during the next two years of WMS demolition and construction did not come to fruition between AUSD and ALL over the past eight months or so.
There have been some hard feelings amongst ALL leadership and parents who say that recognition and respect for the service provided to so many youths who take their skill sets learned in youth baseball to the teams of AUSD do not fully resonate in the current school leadership environment.
ALL officials claim that they were not consulted in the early planning stages of the WMS project, and knew of the field’s demise, which lies on AUSD property, only after AUSD drafted the major overhaul of the Former Lum School Site and the Current WMS location and told them of the ‘end of the line’ on June 27th of last year.
“It would have meant more to me if we were even a small part of the planning process – we might now have a clearer picture of the future and not have the public discontent (which to be sure is coming from folks responding with their hearts and not knowing all the details). That would have shown me that the district truly did care about the league – to make an inclusive plan rather than throw it out there and see how loud the blowback is, if any. Scuderi gets it – he’s a baseball guy,” said Jim Quilici on behalf of ALL.
That perspective aligned, in part, with Scuderi’s account that “we have been meeting with the League for nearly two years about this change and have been fully transparent regarding the upcoming bond work we need to do on our property to serve our students. We have also encouraged the League to work with the City to find a new field.”
That comports with Matthews’ statement to ANN on June 3rd that “They are working with us to find a way to get a fourth field. It is possible that it would be opposite the one that is planned on the track, that would create a multi-purpose field because the two outfields would essentially join to create a soccer/football-sized field in between diamonds.
The City may be involved by creating a third diamond at Rittler,– that has also been discussed,” he added.
Why the new WMS design puts the new Gym in such a location as to sever Field #1 in half, wiping out the snack bar which brings in around 23% of ALL’s annual revenue is not clear at this time.
ALL also is concerned that not all parties in AUSD or The School Board know or recognize that ALL spent over $1 million of its revenues to build Field #1, construct the soon-to-be-gone Snack Bar, and purchase tower lights for night games, in addition to absorbing the cost of field maintenance.
To that end, Quilici said he sensed that “ there are board members that don’t fully appreciate the history or feel the investment of the community as much as they should.”
The league now looks to The City Of Alameda to partner with through its Parks and Rec Department. ALL built Fields at The City’s Rittler Park are an example of their ongoing collaboration.
In that regard, ALL is currently working with The City for storage and eventual re-use of the $250,000 investment in the tower lights, though ALL has to absorb the cost of removal.
At any rate, “Championship Saturday” on June 1 was a momentous, bittersweet day in the history of ALL which has been a fixture of baseball on the island for 44 years, and now helps to fill the “Middle School Sports Gap” since the demise of many school-sponsored team sports at that grade level.
Over 600 Alameda residents, primarily current ALL players and their families, poured onto the four fields to watch the two remaining squads in each of the four little league divisions (Single-A, Double-A, Triple-A, and the Majors) battle it out for the respective titles and bid farewell to the 2024 little league season and the beloved snack bar.
The action-packed title games were full of excitement for players, parents, and other fans. In A-ball, the Yard Goats defeated the River Bandits 15-to-5.
Moving up, the Double-A one-seed Rattlers held off the Blue Rocks in extra-innings, while the Triple-A Buffalo Bison blew out the Hot Rods to secure a perfect season (20-0).
The Rattlers and Bison will represent Alameda in the Tournament of Champions, as will the winner of Monday’s Rays vs Braves rematch for the Majors championship.
The Minor field, aka Field #1 and the diamond closest to Wood Middle School used by the 12-year-old Majors, was ground zero for the last time ever.
AUSD’s demolition of the field and the snack bar officially commenced Monday, June 3rd to make room for the now in-progress rebuilding of WMS, which will receive a much-needed facilities upgrade and improved sports facilities.
As a result, ALL, which has rented the fields from AUSD in a long-term collaborative effort with the district, will have to make do with their remaining three on-site fields for this summer’s tournament of champions and district All-Stars postseason competitions.
ALL will permanently lose a second field in four to five years as it will be done away with to make room for a new Alameda High School football stadium on the ground where Lum Elementary School once stood.
This news is a bitter pill to swallow for many Alamedans, especially those who have warm, childhood memories of playing there in their youth and considering the prominent role that ALL have played in the lives of their families and communities.
As Matthews noted, “Alameda is a baseball town”, a statement that is hard to refute given the lineage of some players that have gone on to bigger and better things after starting their baseball journey in ALL.
For instance, former Major League Baseball pitcher Dontrelle Willis and current Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryan Woo began playing on ALL’s hallowed fields, including #1, near Rittler Park before ascending to and succeeding at the sport’s highest level.
This year, ALL was flush with teams as the program served nearly 1000 kids keeping the fields in use every day of the week. In addition to developing a love of the game, which some will pursue behind ALL, the program provides an opportunity for youth and their parents to form enduring relationships from hours and years spent at the Rittler fields with one another.
Next year, the experience will look a bit different and ALL will have to find a way to get out of the pickle. Jim Quilici, an ALL board member, and director of umpires outlined some strategies the organization could use to compensate for losing a field and the snack bar.
“Overall, the experience will be much tighter as there will be limited access to the one minor league field. We used to have all four fields at one spot, so now if games are at different locations, it will be a little tougher for board members to monitor. We will need one more field offsite at one of the other parks [in Alameda] and the smallest kids will be the easiest to set up to play elsewhere…I don’t know Ron’s plans for a snack bar. It depends on where we move operations, but we will most likely figure out how we handle concessions before next season,” Quilici said.
No one involved with ALL leadership is against the improvements that will benefit generations of Alameda’s AUSD students, especially those at Wood, as the spartan, if not dowdy and gray old structures built on new soil fill into San Francisco Bay in 1965, could use an upgrade.
Nevertheless, Quilici is one of many saddened by the loss of community caused by the changes.
“AUSD did not think at first about impeding Little League. I wish the district had the same feeling of emotional investment as Alameda Little League and all the families that partake in it do and did,” Quilici said.
Two other people, Kate Schatz and Chris Yuen, also expressed their sadness and disappointment about how this situation has played out.
Both parents of current little leaguers reminisced about their time watching games with family, friends, and other community members. Schatz understands why AUSD is doing this to improve the city’s schools, yet wishes that Alameda would invest more in youth sports.
Meanwhile, Yuen, who just had his “second to last chili-cheese nachos” spoke fondly about the snack bar, an aspect he hopes the league leaders can develop a plan to have in the future.
On the other side of this equation, Alameda High’s current varsity football head coach Robin Morris is excited for the school to get a new astroturf football stadium and a regulation-sized track.
While it’s being built, Hornet Football’s home games will remain at the well-worn turf of Thompson Park, which according to Coach Morris is very outdated, has a too-small track, and a host of maintenance issues such as the water not working.
He also mentioned that it is the worst high school football field he has been on in recent years and because it is grass, the Hornets football and soccer teams can not practice in rainy weather, unlike other schools that play on turf fields.
As for the new AHS Stadium removing one of the Little League’s fields, he said, “It is unfortunate that the Little League field is going away as it’s been there a while. It’s AUSD land and will benefit youth in a couple of years as some kids currently playing little league may be using that field in a few years,” Morris said.
One concern with the new AHS sports facility is the distance from AHS’s campus as the field will be farther away from the school than Thompson Field, meaning that student-athletes may have to leave class a bit earlier to make the trek to the new field.
That is a few years away. In the meantime, the city’s little league is likely to continue chugging along, if not gaining more participation.
Folks such as Matthews and Quilici, who have devoted so much of their lives to this little league program and do not seem to be stopping anytime soon, are big reasons ALL continues to swing away and hit the mark in the face of curves and sliders as this incident.
It’s reminiscent of baseball lore’s “hope that lurks eternal within the human breast” ala Casey, who cannot afford to strike out this time.
That hope that ALL will hit its way out of this 0 and 2 setback in the count is not lost on Scuderi, who encourages “the League to work with City to find a new field. Given the abundance of parks and open space in our community, as well as the collaborative nature of City staff, we feel quite certain that an alternative field can be found.”
Matthews, who led ALL to build the sturdy, thick brick-concrete and steel snack bar 25 years ago, wrapped up his opening speech at Saturday’s closing ceremony with these rousing remarks, inspiring those in attendance not to lose momentum in pursuit of new fields of dreams.
“I got blueprints so we can do it [build the snack bar] again. We will get bigger, better, and stronger, “ Matthews said.
Matthews delivers his Field of Memories tribute speech as a banner signifying the legacy of ALL flies in the breeze. At left, Matthews, a man who has pulled many a person’s chain in life, gives the Snackbar links their final tugs to close the window one last time.
