Fossil Park Neighborhood

New Field Opened at Fossil Park

Mar 22, 2005

Opening day for spring 2005 at Fossil Park meant more than opening the season. This year it also meant opening the new field. Like baseball, the building of this field took a team effort. Fossil Park?’s traffic committee invited members of the baseball board to meet with them to address concerns regarding traffic on Atwood. Those meetings generated the proposal to relocate the t-ball field to the center of the park. The city then held a number of meetings for public input. The city parks department handled a large portion of the preliminary work for the construction of the field. The contract for the actual construction was awarded to Eveland Brothers Construction. Baseball contributed $100,000 towards the expenses with the city finding funding for the rest.

So on Saturday, February 26th each of these groups were represented during opening ceremonies for a ?‘pitch out?’ instead of the traditional ribbon cutting ceremony. On hand were, Mayor Rick Baker and Councilman Bill Foster representing the city, Jerry Wooldridge to represent the neighborhood, Parks Director Clarence Scott III represented the role the parks department played, Sheila Eveland represented the construction company, James Campbell, as president, represented Fossil Park Youth Baseball, and Joey Cuda, MVP for the 14 year old Dizzy Dean World Series Champions represented the players who will now get to use this field. There was also one player from each of Fossil?’s teams who played in the 2004 state tournaments to catch the ?‘pitch out?’. You can view pictures of the pitch out at http://www.fossilparkbaseball.org/actionphotos3.html.

Thanks to Jerry and everyone else who came out to opening day.