East Butler baseball locked out
EAST BUTLER — No game today. And maybe none in the foreseeable future.
East Butler Baseball Association officials said the entrance to its baseball complex has been padlocked shut by the Borough Council this week and that players and coaches are forbidden to use the facility.
Drew Mooney, an EBBA coach who has a son in the program, said “we’ve been told that anyone who goes in there will be arrested. They basically closed it down.
“It is what it is. We’re locked out and that’s it.”
The EBBA has a fall ball program for ages 12 and younger. Juan Gonzalez, EBBA president, said 16 kids are signed up for that program and expects that number to possibly double. More than 70 kids played baseball at the EBBA complex in the spring.
“Nobody can believe this,” he said. “We’re in the dark as far as what exactly is going on. The borough owns the land (that the baseball complex is on) and our organization has had a gentleman’s agreement with them for 70 years that we would maintain the field, put in all the work to keep it in shape.
“Our entire association is volunteer. That’s how all the baseball associations in the area — Center Township, Butler Township, all of them — do it. We’re nonprofit. We’re not about money. We’re about giving our kids a place to play baseball.
“I think we’re being run out because council wants this to be about money,” Gonzalez added.
Mooney agreed.
“All I know is we went into a meeting with them, carrying a one-year contract describing how this has been working for the last 70 years and they pretty much threw us out,” Mooney said of the borough council.
Dean Selfridge, director of operations at Historic Pullman Park, refuted rumors that the Pullman board had purchased the EBBA complex from East Butler Borough.
“That is definitely false,” Selfridge said. “I know there’s a dispute going on there, but we have nothing to do with that. East Butler Borough had us do the scheduling for Speed-O field there and we took that over. But that’s as far as our involvement goes.”
Speed-O Field is the home of East Butler’s Butler County Area Baseball League team. The EBBA complex also consists of smaller fields.
The East Butler Bulldogs, a summer collegiate team in the new Rust Belt League this season, played its home games at Speed-O Field. EBBA officials claim its BCABL team was “thrown off” the field six times this summer because the Bulldogs were scheduled to play at the same time.
“I was in charge of scheduling games there just like I schedule games at Pullman,” Selfridge said. “We had the Bulldogs, the East Butler (BCABL) team, the Iron & Oil League ... Everyone has to pay rent to play there just like they do at Pullman.
“That East Butler team did not go through me to schedule games, so we had conflicts. They chose not to cooperate with scheduling and just did their own thing. When multiple teams want to use a field, it doesn’t work that way. It has to be organized.”
When asked if the Bulldogs paid rent to play at Speed-O Field, Selfridge said: “We will if it comes to that, but I don’t work for free.”
Dess Schnur, former president of the EBBA, who was affiliated with the organization for decades, described the locking of the facility as “totally unacceptable. This is adults not getting along and kids are paying for it.”
Gonzalez said the EBBA has been offered use of baseball fields in Center Township and at Butler County Community College to run its Fall Ball program.
“We’re handcuffed right now, but we’ll keep fighting so our kids can play baseball,” Gonzalez said.
“People are crushed and mortified over this,” Mooney said. “We’re not confrontational, but there has to be a solution to this. Locking kids out of a ballpark isn’t it.”
Calls to East Butler Borough Council President Kevin Hesidenz were not returned Tuesday.
