MikeK: Baseball Fields Are Win-Win

MikeK: Cherry Hill was favored for the location. But it wasn’t going to get the money raised and built in time for 2013. So other options were pursued aggressively to take care of Legion baseball. Person Field needed more remediation than made sense to do, the Legion didn’t want to be on either high school field, and the schools wouldn’t give them schedule priority anyway (that’s another story), a great possible location along the river (Riverstone area) didn’t have traction to get it done financially effectively, etc etc. Other privately owned land was considered, discussed, even approached, but none made sense at the end of the day. Ramsey worked, and worked on the timeline, after negotiation and lots of number crunching. You could theoretically put the following uses on one field: NIC, Legion, Summer Minor League, even some high school uses. But the scheduling priorities are hard to juggle, and that field (15th) can’t get fundraised and built in time for the Legion spring season. Going this route allows Legion to have a home that is theirs (replacing McEuen). Cherry Hill will be an additional field (which is needed) and if there can be an “anchor tenant” that will fill a number of dates there that’s a win.

Question: Are you impressed/unimpressed that the city was able to reach compromises re: McEuen Field to be able to move ahead now with the makeover?