New fields still a dream

By Mike Trask

Friday, April 27, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

Former UNLV baseball player Tim Johnson knows a lot about the game. One of the most basic things he knows is that players need a place to play.

In North Las Vegas, where Johnson lives and coaches a nationally ranked Little League team, finding a field can be as difficult as hitting a curveball.

The North Las Vegas Dust Devils have traveled this season to Utah, California and Colorado for games. Next month they will play in a tournament in Henderson.

But they will never have a home game.

The local Cheyenne Little League - 620 players - must share four fields, leading to a scheduling migraine for officials and making lighted fields unavailable for travel teams or even practices.

Some saw an opportunity to alleviate that crunch this month when the North Las Vegas City Council pondered how to develop the planned 132-acre Craig Ranch Regional Park.

In the end, however, the council decided that the park should have nature trails, man-made ponds, gardens, picnic areas, a swimming pool and even a skate park - but no baseball diamonds or soccer fields.

At the meeting, several residents urged the council not to use the park for a sports complex.

"It is a regional park," resident Deborah Lewis said. "It is not a regional ballfield."

In an online survey, nearly 60 percent of residents who responded favored keeping the park as natural as possible by, among other things, preserving about 70 percent of the trees. Residents had two other choices - a sports park or a compromise plan that would have been part nature park, part sports facility.

Little League parents spoke out, too. But evidently not loudly enough.

The sports fields' most outspoken opponents have a history with the council, especially with Councilwoman Shari Buck, who lives near Seastrand Park, the site of two ball diamonds being shared by 42 teams of 9- to 12-year-olds this season. An additional 26 teams use two fields at Aviary Park.

Before the big vote Buck insisted she could have filled the meeting room with youngsters begging for a place to play ball. She then voted for the nature park.

That was after Lewis and Richard Cherchio, both of whom had run against Buck in last month's Ward 4 primary, demanded keeping sports out of the gigantic park, even though a complex of four ballfields would have required only 11 of the park's 132 acres. Two other speakers in favor of the nature park had worked closely with Cherchio on his campaign.

So the park will have an amphitheater , but no fields specifically built for America's pastime.

Ironically, Craig Ranch has been a golf course since the 1960s. City officials say sports fields could be added to the park in the future.

The city bought the land with $52 million from the Bureau of Land Management. North Las Vegas also has secured an additional $20 million to begin construction and is seeking $10 million more in Southern Nevada Public Land Management money to develop the park.

Elsewhere in the city, there are plans to build about 16 baseball diamonds and 26 soccer fields by 2014. But city leaders acknowledge that sports facilities are inadequate, with 10 baseball fields and a handful of soccer fields needed just to meet current demand.

Tuesday night, like every other night, featured doubleheaders on the two Seastrand fields.

"What we need is a four-plex," Johnson said. "There's never enough time for practice. And the kids have to play at 7:45. They don't get home until 10. These are elementary school kids."

Candi Anderson is a member of the league's board of directors. Her job is to run the small snack stand. She also cooks hot dogs on a propane grill.

"It's terrible," she said about the decision to leave baseball out of plans for Craig Ranch. "We voiced our opinion. But ... "

Even the opposition acknowledges there is a pressing need to have a place for kids to play. But they believe the site destined to be the largest park in the county isn't the place.

"There's vacant land they could start from scratch with," Cherchio said. "Craig Ranch is a historical preserve with animals and all sorts of creatures in there."

City spokeswoman Brenda Fischer said the city knows of the need for parks. In addition to baseball and soccer, the city needs lacrosse and football fields.

In the meantime, the Little Leaguers are making do. Seastrand Park is new and everyone agrees the city keeps the fields in top-notch shape.

But they do have one more gripe.

The city charges the league for the light bill, about $17,000 a season. In baseball terms, that's a high, hard one under the chin.