ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702040017
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
OFFICIALS ARE DETERMINED to keep a team, and Texas Rangers bush-leaguers will call Calfee Park home.
For four summers, Calfee Park was an empty shell. Its baseball field lay fallow, its concrete seats along the third-base line were covered only by the grandstand's aging roof and not by fans.
Professional baseball once lived here. For 10 seasons, the Atlanta Braves sent their first-year minor-leaguers here to begin their careers. Before he was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1990, David Justice roamed the Calfee Park turf in front of the tall right-field wall. Steve Avery toed the pitcher's rubber here in 1988 and three years later was pitching in the World Series. Mark Wohlers, Javier Lopez, Jeff Blauser, Mike Stanton and others got started here.
The Pulaski Braves were Atlanta's Appalachian League outfit until 1992, and when the Braves bolted for Danville and its shiny new Dan Daniel Park, local baseball fans were left crestfallen and a venerable ballpark was left empty.
``The Braves always said, `Yeah, we'll be here,''' said Dave Hart, Pulaski's director of parks and recreation. ``Then, one night I'm watching the news and they're going to Danville.''
This summer, the crack of the bat will replace the sound of crickets on summer nights in Calfee Park. The Texas Rangers are close to putting the finishing touches on placing an Appalachian League club in Pulaski.
While it is extremely doubtful the Rangers will stay beyond 1997, there still is a chance the New River Valley could keep professional baseball if another team shows interest in Calfee. A group of individuals also is interested in placing a minor-league team in Radford should Pulaski not be able to keep a team.
Members of Pulaski Baseball Inc. believe the town is ready for a baseball renaissance.
Keeping a team past 1997 ``will depend on a lot of things,'' said Hiawatha Nicely, a Pulaski Baseball Inc. member. ``We've had tremendous cooperation with the Pulaski town council and with the Texas Rangers. Texas has been above-board and told us they're looking [for a place to play in 1998]. They want a good facility you play in. If our community can provide that facility, we'd have an opportunity to keep a team.''
Despite the fact that nearly $100,000 in improvements need to be made to bring Calfee in line with ballpark specifications spelled out in the Professional Baseball Agreement, major-league baseball and the Appalachian League are expected to let Calfee have a team for one season without making major renovations.
For its part, the town council has approved spending $30,000 to improve the lighting and the playing field at Calfee, which opened its gates in 1935.
The timing was perfect for Pulaski. The league needed a 10th team, Texas wanted in, Pulaski had a ballpark. But it's a combination that may be together for only one year.
``From day one, we've made it very clear that this was a one-year arrangement,'' said Lee Landers, president of the Appalachian League. ``It will be a one-year contract with a second-year option if another place is not available'' for the Rangers.
It appears likely the Rangers will move to Charlottesville, provided renovations to the University of Virginia ballpark are completed by 1998. Other locations could emerge as potential destinations for the Rangers in 1998.
``That is a possibility,'' said Reid Nichols, the Rangers' director of minor leagues. ``Pulaski has also expressed interest in competing with another offer. We want to be in a place where people want us. I think a lot of things will be dictated by major-league baseball. We will have to consider what is best in the long term and if all the standards can be met.
``We don't want to bounce around. Major-league baseball wants communities to have baseball and does not want clubs bouncing around year after year. [Pulaski officials] have gone out of their way to get baseball back.''
If Pulaski wants to keep professional baseball beyond 1997, it will have to build a clubhouse and improve other features such as seating and restrooms. The cost of the clubhouse alone could be $60,000.
``A number of things could happen,'' said Hart, who oversees Calfee's maintenance. ``The Rangers could be here one year and move to a new park in '98 or maybe they'll like it here so well and want to stay. Maybe the league will expand by two teams in '98 and they'll be looking for a home. We're an ideal situation for the league. We're right on the interstate, right in the middle of things.''
Pulaski is a relatively central location for a league composed of teams from Princeton and Bluefield, W.Va.; Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City and Elizabethton, Tenn.; Burlington, N.C.; and Martinsville and Danville.
Maintaining a club for more than one season also will depend on fan support. When the Braves averaged fewer than 900 fans per game in 1992, it made their decision to leave Pulaski easier.
For now, at least, historic Calfee Park has a chance to be properly utilized again, a chance to show it can be a homey, charming place for minor-leaguers to play. Just three years ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates entertained thoughts of putting a minor-league team here before trashing those plans and dashing what appeared to be Pulaski's last hope of getting pro ball back.
``We realize we've still got a tremendous mountain to climb,'' Nicely said. ``People of this area have always been baseball fans. We're determined to provide professional baseball to those people.''
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON STAFF. Calfee Park has a great ambiance forby CNBbaseball but few modern amenities. It needs major renovations to fit
today's standards. color.