Bailey Park work at a standstill
Here’s the skinny on Bailey Park:
Odds are our beautiful little gem of a ballpark will not be ready for play this spring or summer.
For those who haven’t been paying attention: for decades Bailey Park was a focal point of sports in Uniontown. Football. Mush ball. Marbles. (Look the last two up.) Boxing. Baseball. Throughout the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, if it was being played it was being played at Bailey Park.
Oh, I forgot to mention: tennis and basketball. Once upon a time even, volleyball.
Then it all seemed to go away. Organized baseball hasn’t been played there regularly maybe for a decade. The granddaddy of sandlot baseball in the county was all but kaput.
Thank goodness for the occasional tournament. And softball. The girls’ high school softball team calls Bailey Park home, god bless ’em.
Hopes were high last winter for the return in 2017 of high school baseball. Announcement was made of a deal between the city and the Uniontown Area School District, whereby the school district would see to the completion of the sturdy brick concession stand that sits strategically behind the backstop of the “big” field and beyond the leftfield fence of the smaller or “little” field.
Moreover, the deal struck between the city and the district came with a division of labor: the city would get the fields in shape for play; the district would maintain them.
Implicit in all this was the expectation that the Red Raider boys would put bat to ball this spring at Bailey Park. For the wildly hopeful, there were dreams of summer play at the ballyard. Organized youth baseball. Or in the parlance of old Uniontown: the return of the “Midget” and “Teener” leagues.
Kids at play. Imagine that.
It’s sufficient to note that the Raiders have played their home games this year at Hutchinson field in Hopwood, South Union Township.
“I can’t say I’ve written the year off,” Robert Smalley said.
Smalley is the director of buildings and grounds for the school district. Since winter, fretting over the park, he has been in weekly contact with the city, hopeful, always hopeful about the eventuality of baseball at Bailey Park.
Here’s the problem: the infield never seems to completely dry out. A little rain and water puddles between the pitcher’s mound and first base, the district superintendent Charles Machesky told me in a brief telephone conversation. According to Smalley, it takes three days of sunshine for the wet to evaporate.
Something’s amiss. As far as Smalley can figure, the root of the problem traces back to two distinct culprits, an either-or situation.
First, the field was rearranged several years ago: home plate was moved closer to the backstop, lengthening the distance down the line to the right field fence. Perhaps, Smalley speculated, the underground piping meant to drain the field of moisture is no longer properly positioned.
Second, it’s possible the infield mix is out of whack: not enough silt, too much sand, or something like that.
The city, Smalley told me, had a man come in to look the situation over. Conclusion: inconclusive.
Smalley has reached out to a rec field professional from Pittsburgh. The man is busy. He told Smalley just about the only time he would be able to drop by is on a rainy day. Perfect, Smalley said. Nothing exposes Bailey Park’s problematic infield like a good soak.
It’s all very frustrating for Smalley, who readily admits he’s not an expert when it comes to baseball fields. “I’m not a grounds professional,” he said.
A buildings specialist, he nearly has the concession stand in shape, ready to go, thanks in part to donations of plumbing and electrical equipment and labor.
My impression is that Smalley is both optimistic and wary about what his Pittsburgh man will say about the infield. Optimistic that it will only take a little here, a little there to correct the problem.
Wary because the difficulty with the infield may be fundamental: the silt-sand-clay mix may not be right, in which case remediation would probably be costly.
Neither the city nor the school district are optimally financed. And baseball is not football. The resurfaced high school football field cost the district some $600,000 two years ago The first artificial surface, put in place a decade or more ago, cost in the range of three-quarters of a million dollars. Smalley said.
Quarterbacks first. Cleanup hitters second.
Smalley hears from people about Bailey Park. “They are curious,” he said. People tell him they want to help get the venerable field back in play. He thanks them and tells them to wait. There is nothing they can do until the infield conundrum is solved.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.