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5 replies

What are they thinking?

C cong1,000+ posts
I have been looking for a new "home field" for our AAU travel team and having a lot of discussion with local and county recreation officials over the last few months. To make a long story short, it's not easy to find a field when the majority of your players are not from one single town. More to the point of this post is a conversation I had with a local recreation official and subsequent conversations with other officials.

The summary is:
You can not practice, play or even be on a field without a proper permit. I am OK with that. Some field even post that information for all to see right in the parking lot. Most do not.

Here is what really bothers me. Kids, You know them, we probably all have them or are them. These fields are for the kids!!! Let me repeat that.. These fields are for the kids..... BUT, in more than 1 town, my discussion led me to this information. No one can play at these fields without a permit! That includes kids just wanting to play a pickup game of baseball on a baseball field created for kids to play baseball on!! Yes, I specifically asked about this and was told multiple times but multiple towns the same thing.

What are they thinking? I could not believe it! When all of these parks were established, the primary reason was so kids could play baseball, without permits, parents, uniforms, leagues, snack stands or umpires. Just kids playing. Let me repeat... Just kids playing!!! But not anymore. Insurance risks were a main theme to this conversation. What???? Your park isn't cover by insurance if kids want to play?
cong [url=http://www.youthbaseballcoaching.com/]Youth Baseball Coaching[/url] "In a child, sports build character. In adults, sports reveal character."
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Coach MercCoach Merc1,000+ posts
Cong,
we have had to be very creative here. We have no town fields (90'), the only one is at the local HS. With only 2 or 3 kids from that district it becomes tough. I have coached at the varsity level for 10 years, never accepted a $1 and have continually been the one responsible for taking care of the field. I have gone to the administration for improvements and or neccisities. This all before I needed the field 4 years ago. Aside from this my organization makes a yearly donation, $$$ or Turface, baseballs, bats what ever the school may need at that point.

The reason I write this is that every year people step up to complain that I'm given any field time. Our time is usually 1 night a week for practice and 6 weekend dates either a Sat or Sun. Not much to ask for....

We also offer the local little league the use of our players during their annual clinic and tryouts.

Local politicians, rec departments are almost happier when the fields are empty. Less up keep, trash pick up etc...What we should do is blitz them with paper work, kids want a permit to play catch today, another permit for tomorrow when we want to hit them ground balls and yet another permit for BP the next day...
T theEH1,000+ posts
I ran the fields for about 6yrs for the local LL, and let me tell you what. It's like pulling teeth to get them the city, are county, to help you out without jumping thru hoops.
Not only do you have to have the proper permits you had to rent the fields to. Not counting having to have all the players living in the same district.
Next time your out at the fields thank the guy that volunteers to take care of your fields. He works hard and could use all the help he can get to maintain the fields we all enjoy going out to, to watch are son's/ and daughters play ball.
R Rsctt8310+ posts
There are fields where I live in San Diego that are on public lands {such as schools and parks} that some organizations pull year long permits for even though they do not use the field 24/7.

I wanted to get a permit for my younger son team to practice legally at a field and was told that little league had a year long permit and that you had to obtain there approval. I said the heck with it and we just used the field.

Once I was hitting groundballs to my son on a public field. There was no one around and I had actually raked the leftside of infield. I was approached by a man who was screaming at me stating that I had no right to use this field and that LL had exclusive rights. I basically was speechless and reminded him that LL baseball was over and unless I was missing something other than him no one was around. I tried to be cordial but quickly lost it and told him that he should either leave or call the police. He actually did call the police. That's a topic for another discussion ....
06catcherdad06catcherdad1,000+ posts
Cong, I think you missed it on this one. You asked "What were they thinking?"

You should have asked why weren't they thinking at all!

Everywhere, people are faced with this same dilemna where they are denied access to idle fields by schools officials or rec district managers who don't want you out there unless you jump through a bunch of hoops and pay them money. Too many of us fail to realize that many of these people don't really want to have to do anything out of their daily routine, and we're upsetting their applecart when we seek to use the fields that we pay for, and often do a lot of work to maintain.

God forbid that the kids should actually be out there playing baseball instead of smoking and doing other illicit stuff at skateboard parks, drinking, tagging, or just getting into trouble in general. The attitudes of adults have very much to do with the problems of today's youth.
dad10dad10100+ posts
Sounds familiar. Litigation is a killer, and this is just one more example.

One thing I have never quite understood . . . . with all these AAU organizations around, with their own indoor facilities, and expensive teams, why don't they have their own fields? I know it can be costly, but honestly, they go on and on about how they are these great baseball training facilites, and are equipped to help get you to the next level, but I don't think I've ever seen one that actually has . . . their own baseball field. Shouldn't that be something of a priority for a baseball training organization, particularly one that fields several teams?

One AAU team around here actually took a good aggressive approach and got donations of labor, money and expertise and made a deal with the local high school. They made over the schools fairly lousy field, put in a new infield, new fences, benches etc and in exchange they have use of it pretty much any time they want, as long as the high school isn't using it. It works out nice for them both.
Last edited by dad10

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