TRAVERSE CITY -- Little Leaguers on the west side of Traverse City will have a new home field in 2009.
This fall, renovations have been made to a field in Elmwood Township, turning an old softball field into a regulation Little League diamond.
"It will be by far the best field we have," Traverse City Little League president Don Beem said. "Elmwood Township has been very helpful allowing us to work out there."
The field will host the Little League "majors" division, made up of 11-12 year-olds.
Parent and coach Brad Garmhausen helped organize the project after having to take his team to every game at either Blair Township or to the fields on Carlisle Road.
"We started talking during the season," Garmhausen said. "Blair's field was not kept up for good, quality play. There's a lip in the infield and ground balls just don't play how you think.
"It was just time to upgrade the fields. We want to host districts and have fields to be proud of. Nobody is proud of the fields in Blair."
Hosting districts will now be a realistic possibility.
"It's an excellent field for that," Beem said. "We've always had to travel for tournament play because we didn't have a quality field to host."
The new field will feature a grass infield, scoreboard, new dugouts, bleachers, and an outfield fence measuring 210 feet to center, 190 feet to left and 182 feet to the right-field corner.
"The fences are shorter than we would like, but they meet the requirements for Little League," Garmhausen said.
Garmhausen said the field renovation was about a $70,000 project. To raise money, the group -- led by Garmhausen, Mark Newhouse and Ted Moore -- hosted a golf outing and ran a fundraiser last month at Centre ICE during Red Wings training camp. And the group is still raising funds and applying for grants to finish the job.
Donations have also been key with a number of businesses giving supplies and labor.
"Elmwood Township is going to pay for the bleachers, the dugout benches and the fencing," Garmhausen said. "And they'll give us another $7,000 as a loan if we can't reach our goal."
The field is expected to be ready for play next summer.
Adding a third Little League field for the area should also benefit the diamonds in Blair Township and on Carlisle Road.
"They play 12-14 games for that age group and three or four pre-season games," Beem said. "Obviously, adding another field will take pressure off of those. Fields wear down over the course of a season."
"I grew up in Frankfort and we always had nice fields," Garmhausen said. "Now that I'm coaching and seeing my son have to go on a field that wasn't right, it made me cringe. I had to see what we could do here."
Garmhausen said last year money was put into minor renovations to the "super minor" field for a new mound, bases and diamond dust.
And he's contributed to the Elmwood Township project.
"Several of us have donated thousands of dollars to this project, but it will be worth it to have a nice park for the community," he said.
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