Baseball field coming home to AMC

BY BILL DOYLE
CFP CORRESPONDENT
 
PAXTON - Anna Maria College hit a home run with the emphasis on “home.”
On Saturday, Oct. 1, Anna Maria held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a $5 million, lighted, multi-purpose synthetic athletic field that will become the home of the college’s baseball team.
Of Anna Maria College’s 900 undergraduate students on campus, nearly half play sports for the school. Anna Maria, however, has only one turf field, Carparso Field, which opened in 2009 and is used by the football, field hockey and men’s and women’s soccer and lacrosse teams for practices and games. The softball team also practices on it and students use it for intramural sports and recreation. So, the field is used early in the mornings and most days from 2 p.m. until close to midnight.
The college’s baseball field was replaced by a dormitory, St. Anne Hall, 10 years ago, so the baseball team plays its home games at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough and at Marlborough High School, each of which is a 45-minute drive from campus.
Clearly, Anna Maria needed another athletic field on campus. This new field is scheduled to open for practice for non-football teams in the fall of 2023 and for baseball games in the spring of 2024.
“When they took the baseball field away,” Anna Maria president Mary Lou Retelle said, “it was a real disappointment to many, many people, not just the baseball team. So it really is great that we’re able to come back. It’s exciting to have everyone seeing the progress we’re having at Anna Maria and it won’t stop here.”
Hugh Drummond, vice president for external relations, said donors will pay the entire $5 million cost and the college is open to signing a naming rights deal for the field. In the meantime, it will be called the AMCAT Athletic Field.
Ms. Retelle announced on Saturday that a 1972 graduate who wished to remain anonymous had donated $1 million to the school.
The field will be built behind the freshmen dorm, Madonna Hall, in an area that is partly an open field and partly wooded.
“It’s going to benefit the entire campus,” athletic director Joe Brady said. “It’s going to open the door for a number of things for our campus and the community.”
There will be opportunities for the field to host summer camps and be rented to the community for events.
Last spring, the Anna Maria baseball team posted a 23-17 record while setting a school-record for victories despite not playing any games on campus.
“It’s been challenging,” AmCats baseball coach Dan Briand said, “but these kids are really resilient, and they’ve done a good job of putting their heads down and whatever field we have available on a particular day we just go play on it and make the best of it. But it’s going to be really nice and rewarding for them to just be able to play on campus in front of the whole campus community.”
With home games on campus, the AmCats expect to have even more success.
“Without a doubt, it’s going to help recruiting,” Mr. Brady said.
Baseball captain Kosta Drosidis is a graduate student who is eligible to play two more years because much of the 2020 season was canceled due to the pandemic. So he’ll get to play on the new field the year it opens.        
“Having a field on campus for all the students to come by and see, and faculty and staff, is pretty exciting,” he said.
Mr. Briand said only 25-50 students attended most Anna Maria baseball games last spring, but he expects four times as many when they play on campus.
“It will be really cool for the kids to have that home field advantage,” Mr. Briand said.
Baseball has become a popular sport at the college, with 57 student-athletes in the program. For the first time, Anna Maria will play junior varsity baseball games next year.
At the ground-breaking ceremony, Ms. Retelle, board of trustees member Timothy Murray, who is president and CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Brady, Mr. Briand and Mr. Drosidis all spoke.
“This is a campus,” Mr. Murray said, “where students, through sports or through a whole host of other extra curricular activities, are very involved. That’s one of the things that makes Anna Maria unique. That’s why it’s a school that punches above its weight and continues to do so.”
Steve Washkevich, who drove a tractor to help the school build the former baseball field on campus when he was the college’s first athletic director from 1977-97, was among those on hand for the ceremony.
“This is exciting,” Mr. Washkevich said, “because this is what we talked about when I was here – the future. We took our beatings back then and we struggled with the fields and everybody did that so we would have a base to build on.”
Spectrum News sports director Kevin Shea emceed the event, which took place on homecoming, reunion and family weekend. After Anna Maria’s Deacon John “Jack” A. Franchi blessed the site with holy water, Mr. Shea congratulated him on recording the first victory on the field because his prayer had made the rain stop prior to the ceremony.
Members of the Anna Maria teams and Mac the AMCAT, the college’s mascot, also attended.
Worcester Bravehearts general manager Dave Peterson was on hand along with Anna Maria graduate Rob Durant, who plays the role of Bravehearts mascot, Jake the Lion. WooSox players Ryan Fitzgerald and Durbin Feltman were also in attendance.
Derck & Edson, LLC., of Lititz, Pennsylvania, is the architect and project manager for the field. Derck & Edson also designed several other college baseball fields, including for Lehigh University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.