Worried at Dickey-Stephens
In an 2012 essay for Arkansas Life magazine, Little Rock writer Jay Jennings lamented the destruction of Ray Winder Field, longtime home of the Texas League’s Arkansas Travelers.
“Ray Winder Field is now flattened, no mound in its middle, its concrete rubble hauled away, its fences knocked down, its I-beams only a ghostly memory,” he wrote. “I mourn its demise and can conjure up my youthful summer nights there, chasing down foul balls through empty rows of seats, rushing to the dugout fence to ask for a broken bat, reveling in the varying textures of a Drumstick ice cream cone. Baseball has always been about nostalgia and fungible time.”
The Arkansas Travelers had no choice but to move. Major League Baseball was demanding more space for training rooms, workout areas and the like. It was space Ray Winder didn’t have. The Travelers would have been forced into a new market without another stadium.
So on Sept. 3, 2006—a Sunday afternoon when many of us shed tears—the final game was played at Ray Winder. The
Travs defeated the Springfield Cardinals 7-2 in front of
8,000 fans, the second-largest turnout in the team’s long, rich history.
Fortunately for the Travelers (I served on the board back then and still do), Little Rock investment banker Warren Stephens donated riverfront property and North Little Rock voters enacted a temporary sales tax to build Dickey-Stephens Park. In August 2007, it was named the nation’s professional ballpark of the year by the website baseballparks.com.
And what about Ray Winder, which opened in April 1932 and was home of the Travelers from 1932-58, in 1960-61 and then again from 19632006?
A group of us came up with a plan to utilize the stadium for college, high school and American Legion games. After all, it had been to minor league baseball what Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were to the majors. Simply put, it was one of the most historic baseball venues in the country.
Amazingly, Little Rock’s government leaders, desperate for cash, sold the stadium for a pittance to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. UAMS, in turn, transformed the site into an unsightly parking lot. A number of those involved in what had to have been among the worst decisions in the capital city’s history now regret it.
On the north side of the Arkansas River, Dickey-Stephens remains a wonderful place to watch baseball. I enjoy games in these waning days of the season because it’s peaceful at the ballpark. Once school begins, Arkansans generally stop attending minor league games. Their focus turns to school activities and football. It’s as if the Travelers are performing just for the hard-core fans in late August and early September.
I worry about the future. Life changed a few years ago when MLB took over the minor leagues. There’s no longer a Texas League office or commissioner. Everything—and I mean everything—must go through the MLB offices in New York.
Millions of dollars in facility improvements are being required from all teams (the Northwest Arkansas Naturals find themselves in the same boat). Minor league players are now unionized, so player safety is a bigger concern than ever before.
Those who have followed the history of Dickey-Stephens know that it’s owned by the city of North Little Rock; the Travelers merely lease the facility. They also know that the field has had sinkhole problems through the years. The well-known engineering and consulting firm Black & Veatch was hired to study the issue. It recommended a multimillion-dollar plan that its engineers said would solve the problem for good.
MLB, with its focus on player safety, is requiring that the full Black & Veatch plan be implemented. For reasons I don’t understand, the city of North Little Rock is balking. If city officials think MLB is going to blink, they’re wrong.
Without a full resolution to the sinkhole issue, the Travelers will be forced to move. Our board is focused on ensuring the team remains in central Arkansas. But I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t tell you that the chance that this cherished entity might be forced to move to another state is real.
The Travelers have not only provided family-friendly entertainment to generations of Arkansans, they’re a good corporate citizen. Nowhere is that more evident than in the work of the Arkansas Travelers Youth Foundation. Last year, the foundation gave away $27,000 worth of baseball equipment along with more than $60,000 in donations, scholarships and grants. It served 787 young Arkansans at baseball clinics. Those numbers will be higher this year.
“I started the year by giving out $3,500 in scholarships, buying a $6,000 pitching machine for the new baseball program at Philander Smith University and donating $12,000 in red clay for three youth baseball fields,” says Lance Restum, the foundation’s executive director. “And I was just getting warmed up.”
Clinics have been held before games at Dickey-Stephens, at the Junior Deputy League fields in Little Rock and elsewhere. There have even been joint basketball-baseball clinics with the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA. The goal of the foundation is to get children outdoors and playing ball. It’s another reason I’m glad we have the Travelers in Arkansas.
The Travs are home Sunday afternoon and then have a final homestand Sept. 5-10. I’ll be in my seat enjoying the games. And I’ll continue to worry that North Little Rock leaders are about to make as big a mistake as their colleagues in Little Rock made when they tore down Ray Winder Field.