COMMUNITY HELPS FIX A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
With little league season only a month away, many come out to fix up fields in West Vallejo
There were no cornfields, ghosts or long-lost doctors, but dozens of people came to Callen and Evans fields in Vallejo Saturday morning hoping to fix a future “Field of Dreams.”
And yes, many are hoping that if they build it, they will come.
Vallejo Little League has seen its number of players dwindle from 500 a few years ago down to 200 this year. With that in mind, many people showed up near the railroad tracks at Florida and Amador streets to rebuild Callen and Evans fields.
Evans Field on the west side of the tracks was where the community started rebuilding on Saturday, breaking down the bleachers behind a fire-damaged fence. The field, littered with trash and besides a home plate near the fence, looked unrecognizable. Grass and weeds had grown and been left without any care for months.
Vallejo Little League President Jason Davis said he grew up playing on the field when he was a kid, and he was hoping many other kids could have the same opportunity. The Vallejo City Unified School District and New Faith Cathedral Church of God in Christ own the field, which has been used lately for practices, but not games.
“Today our goal is to have a total cleanup,” Davis said. “We're picking up things and next week we'll hopefully be bulldozing the infield to make it more level. Big Creek Lumber has kindly donated a lot of materials including wood for the roof the dugouts. But we're still still looking for donations of any kind. We still need paint and other supplies, anything we can get. Any kind of donation helps and we'll take it.”
It wasn't just adults breaking down the bleachers, trimming the grass and getting rid of trash. Much of the group helping out consisted of volunteers from the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as kids in the area, whether they played baseball or not.
“It makes me feel really good and it just shows the importance of youth in this community,” Vallejo Little League parent Becky Pua said. “We're taking something that is not perfect and trying to make it perfect.”
Pua's daughter, the 11-year-old
Ulualani, plays in Vallejo Little League at the Majors level and was happy to help out on a field she has practiced on, but hasn't played a game on yet.
“I helped dig up dirt and put a lot of rocks in a wheelbarrow,” Ulualani said. “I kind of feel in the middle now, because I want to play on this field but there's safety hazards. But I'm excited to clean it up.”
Twelve-year-old Luke Fotu doesn't even play baseball, but showed up at the cleanup to do his part for the community.
“It just felt like a good deed to do,” Fotu said. “Today I've been picking up all the broken roots and weed and a lot of the wood I've helped get out.”
Davis said he wants kids to have the same kind of fun he had as a kid.
“I want to help give these kids somewhere safe to play,” Davis said. “We want to fix these fields and we realize that we have to go through a process to do it. Hopefully if we fix these fields the number of people who want to play Little League will go up.”
For more information on future cleanups and the league itself, visit www. vallejolittleleaguebaseball.org/.