Baseball league searches for a field
After this season, Santa Clarita Youth Baseball will not have a venue after landlord ends deal
For four seasons, the moms and dads of more than 400 families shared “field of dreams” moments on the western rural edge of the Santa Clarita Valley.
Since 2014, they shared in the routine that celebrated their kids playing baseball — finding a spot to watch, unfolding their chairs, wrapping up in a blanket and watching the teams of the Santa Clarita Youth Baseball League compete.
When the sun sets on this fall season’s games at the Rick Robb Memorial Baseball Park on the westernmost edge of the Valencia Travel Village, it will set permanently.
No more.
Owners of the RV community on Highway 126 are evicting the baseball league with plans to bulldoze the field and pave it over so more RVs can park there.
Ira Robb, whose San Diego-based company Iracini LLC owns the Valencia Travel Village property, was asked about the plans Friday.
“I really have no comment,” he said. Bulldozers can begin plowing the baseball diamonds under as early as January, leaving the league in a lurch to find a new home.
“It’s a shame,” said league President Jim Nuttall. “For all those families, it was a field of dreams.”
It was certainly the dream of Rick Robb, who put the league and field together.
Robb died of a heart attack in 2012 during a pickup game of basketball. His legacy, however, lived on with the opening of the baseball park two years
later for a league devoted to enabling kids aged 4 to 12 to play baseball.
The league filled a niche enabling young boys and girls to learn baseball, serving Valencia, Stevenson Ranch, Saugus, Castaic, Newhall and Canyon Country.
Pre-school baseball
It began as the Castaic Little League in 1995, was rebranded to become Santa Clarita Little League in 2015 and then evolved into an official part of Cal Ripken Baseball in 2016.
By joining the ranks of the Cal Ripken baseball organization, boundary restrictions imposed by Little League International were suddenly lifted.
Cal Ripken Baseball is a
division of the national Babe
Ruth League, which boasts online:
“Keeping baseball fun — especially in the early stages of youth baseball.”
The Babe Ruth League Inc., itself is a nonprofit, educational organization, named after one of the greatest baseball players of all time – George Herman “Babe” Ruth — now comprised of more than one million players on some 60,000-plus teams in more than 11,000 leagues and over 1.9 million volunteers.
Its SCV chapter, however, is now in search of a home.
“We’re open to any assistance,” Nuttall said Friday. “We’re in scramble mode.”
The league posted news of the eviction last week on social media. It reads: “It is with heavy hearts that we announce the following news: Upon the conclusion of the fall 2018 season, Valencia Travel Village will no longer be the home of Santa Clarita Youth Baseball, as VTV ownership has made the decision to end their partnership with us for alternate business ventures.”
The league was scheduled Monday night to host a town hall meeting with its member families to talk about possible solutions for a spring 2019 season. “Thank you and thanks for the great years, VTV. The fans and the kids will miss these amazing facilities and appreciate the years we were fortunate to play our favorite game upon them.”
Nuttall added the options may be limited. “You got a lot of city parks in Santa Clarita but no place is going to let you move in,” he said. “It’s going to take someone stepping in and doing something.”