As the dust settles on 2023, and after having some time to process and reflect on the closure of Ballplayer Field, I wanted to summarize the impact that the Field had. Lamorinda weekly recently posted an article here, which is worth a read.

It provided value to children (and families) during an important time

Let’s take a brief Covid lookback; indoor restrictions for businesses, fear of being in close quarters, big public sector liability concerns. Almost all activities our children were involved in were shut down or extremely limited. Some of the only options were swim, tennis and golf. Building Ballplayer Field allowed us to move our gym and batting cage outdoors, therefore providing a safe outdoor place for fitness and baseball activities. Once word was out, families told their friends. Throughout the fall and winter of 2020, we had dozens of parents tell us that what we were doing was the only thing keeping their child active - and therefore providing them a physical, social, and mental respite from the confines of their home… A few parents later commented that the positive impacts were almost immeasurable.

It magnified the demand for fun, outdoor, sports related activities for kids

The original iteration of the field (fitness and baseball) were born out of necessity. What came after resulted from demand for additional activities - camps, birthday parties, soccer and lacrosse clinics, events. The Field became a place where kids spent thousands of hours NOT on a screen, while socializing and having fun with old and new friends.

With a turf field and a wide open summer calendar, we decided to host multi-sport and baseball camps. Hundreds of families attended our camps and were happy to have a safe, local option for their children.

The multi-sport camps turned into an idea to host outdoor parties - where the birthday boy or girl could play supervised games like kickball, wiffleball or capture the flag, jump around on an inflatable obstacle course, and then have pizza and dessert. In 3 years we hosted over 200 birthday parties 😱 (never saw that coming!).

It proved to be a great event space

Some of the best events we hosted were 5th grade graduation parties, a Lafayette little league fundraiser for their teams to go to Cooperstown, a St. Perpetua kickball tournament, a sporting goods donation driven, and a site for TV production. We even had a group rent the space to train their birds to fly. All kinds of cool ideas came about due to the fact that we had a privately operated multi-use field.

It provided employment to dozens of people

In addition to the professional coaches Ballplayers employs, the field created a need for even more of those coaches. It also gave an opportunity to provide employment for local high school and Saint Mary’s college students. In 3 and a half years, we provided valuable job experience and income to no less than 40 people.

In the end, I built the field as a means to provide outdoor fitness and recreation for kids with the expectation that it would last 6-12 months. I didn’t expect it to last as long as it did. If someone told me when it opened that this project would take on a life of its own, over more than 3 years, and positively impact thousands of families - I would have been pretty damn happy to do exactly what we did. With the book closed on the field, I wonder what I’ll come up with next…