To my knowledge, CS has 2 ballparks - Wayne Smith and Bachmann and are heavily used for CS Little League. My descriptions of field sizes may be off so I'm open for someone correcting me there.

Wayne Smith has 2 tee ball fields, and 3 smaller fields up to 12u size


Bachmann has 4 tee ball fields, 4 smaller fields used for up to 2u, and 2 larger fields that 13u and up play at.


Both of these facilities are old - that doesn't mean they don't work for playing ball. The concessions are small, restrooms are small. They work for little league season, I don't think they could handle an all weekend tournament. I'm sure decades ago they weren't built with that in mind.

The city lacks the larger fields. I've been over google maps and all the other ballparks I can see are for little league or softball. What was planned to be built would've met the needs. I'll say again, Franklin Ranch is by far the best park out there and would be a great blueprint for something locally.

Local baseball clubs - Bucks, Pride, Twelve, Renegades, I'm sure there are others. There are hundreds of local kids that play in tournament ball, it'd be a great relief to be able to host locally every now and then.

Thank you Farmer.

How many fields doe the City of Bryan have available?

I note that the Franklin fields is 83 acres in size are a couple of miles out of town. Would that work here?

Since a City owned ballpark would remove a very large acreage from the City property tax roles, is there any downside to developing ballparks beyond the City limits? Possibly in the ETJ?

As you head out Fitch toward Hwy. 30, I think the boundary for CSISD is the creek, but that the College Station city limits has an "arm" that runs along Fitch all the was to Hwy. 30. Seems to be largely undeveloped land with few neighbors that might be disturbed by the lights.

For the ball-park advocates, I strongly recommend putting together some type of report, with real numbers to justify the need/cost.

Tailgate88 said:

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Can you or someone else on here who has knowledge of the local baseball landscape summarize the facilities that we have now and how many additional fields etc. would be needed?

Full disclosure my kids did not play baseball and are in college now, but generally speaking I am in support of anything for kids if it makes sense. Obviously we have the demand here, curious how much supply is needed?

Or maybe this has already been done by city staff before the proposal was approved initially, but that seems to be a few years back and the landscape may have changed.

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Farmer is correct on fields. Part of the issue is this. The fields we have now are perfectly fine and adequate in supply for Little League. I believe the fences are a tad shorter than current Little League standards, but they are close enough.

The issue that we run into is that travel ball is different than Little League. In Little League, the base path distance (60 feet) and pitching mound distance (46 feet) stays the same through 12U. For travel, the distances are as follows:

9U-10U (60 feet and 46 feet)
11U-12U (70 feet and 50 feet)
13U (80 feet and 54 feet)
14U+ (90 feet and 60 feet 6")

This is why the prospect of having 8 full-size, full turf fields was very exciting. If you have moveable fences (like they do for the softball tournaments) that is eight fields that you can use for every single age group.

MyNameIsJeff said:

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Fields here will probably be a pretty bad deal for the facility in Franklin.

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maybe Franklin can build a conference center.

Well that's at once very helpful and disappointing. Would love a way to fulfill the baseball need affordably. You seem highly knowledgeable in all this.

Would the baseball fields bring in outside visitors? What % of the need is local vs tourism?

Are there any underutilized existing fields/space that could be affordably converted/upgraded?

What led to the decision to build TIB in the first place? I wasn't at city hall. Please advise.

How many fields are required to achieve critical mass for local and/or tourism? 3? 5?

Is synthetic turf necessary? Does it last? Does the ground undulate over time? If it does is it expensive to fix?

Was TIB the right call back in 2017?

What would you do in this situation if you could wave a magic wand?

Please advise

Edited for: scratch all that let's get lunch or coffee instead. It's on me. Pls send email to byancy@cstx.gov if you'd like.

Bob Yancy said:

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Well that's at once very helpful and disappointing. Would love a way to fulfill the baseball need affordably. You seem highly knowledgeable in all this.

Would the baseball fields bring in outside visitors? What % of the need is local vs tourism?

Are there any underutilized existing fields/space that could be affordably converted/upgraded?

What led to the decision to build TIB in the first place? I wasn't at city hall. Please advise.

How many fields are required to achieve critical mass for local and/or tourism? 3? 5?

Is synthetic turf necessary? Does it last? Does the ground undulate over time? If it does is it expensive to fix?

Was TIB the right call back in 2017?

What would you do in this situation if you could wave a magic wand?

Please advise

Edited for: scratch all that let's get lunch or coffee instead. It's on me. Pls send email to byancy@cstx.gov if you'd like.

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More than happy to do that and I will reach out. However, I would highly recommend reaching out to all of the travel organizations in town to schedule a meeting with the leaders. Twelve, Bucks, Pride, Renegades, G1 (I may have missed 1 or 2). They will be able to tell you how many teams they have, how many practice time slots are needed, what tournaments could be, etc.

They will know a lot more than me about those details. I know that Twelve has 14 teams this fall (8U-14U) starting practice tomorrow. Our team has 5 practices before our first game and none of those practices will be on a baseball field. Part of this is because CS Parks does not release the field availability for another week or two.

Thanks for that. Maybe a group meeting? Nobody has to tell me who you are on here. Not that I agree with anonymity on a social media platform but fine. Just want to get my thoughts right. If you don't do headache inducing research you get it wrong. I don't know this space as my kids are grown. Took 2 posts to realize you're an SME. With a group of you it'd be gold. Baseball purple squirrels. Lol

Send me that email we'll make it a pizza baseball summit.

Respectfully

These tournaments are good for small businesses... Food trucks, snow cones, etc. There are other vendors that set up tents to sell goods on site as well. Some nicer venues don't allow ice chests through the gates (except for the teams), and some even sell alcohol. Not advocating for the latter, just informing. During the summer months you can make an outrageous amount on water and gatorade sales alone. "If you build it they will come" is true, as others have already pointed out Franklin's facilities. But our community has so much more in the way of hotel options. If the CS tourism group's primary purpose is heads in beds, then I'm not quite sure what the city has been waiting on to get something done. Hey, we get it - A&M events are king. But you're leaving a lot of vacant rooms and empty restaurants when students are gone and university activities are on pause for the summer. It just makes sense all around, and if the city doesn't back a project like this then I'm sure a private developer will eventually come along and do it right. Alternatively we could let Bryan take the lead on it. And why not? They've been running circles around us for a while now…

Honestly, I am a bit taken aback by EVERYONE not being very aware at how severely lacking our baseball facilities are here. I assumed everyone did, and that was why TIB was put into motion. I played little league at Bachmann in the mid 1980s. We had those 6 fields back then..and since the 1980s we have added only 3 more??? Has the population of CS only grown by 50% since 1985?...more like tripled!

Seriously Mr. Yancy, I would like to challenge you to go to the ball fields up at Bachmann, and visit the male restroom facilities when it is 95 degrees outside. I think if you dug around on this issue a bit more you might find some things we desperately need more than a conference center here. I would ask you to visit the t-ball facilities, but there are none except for port-a-cans. The ballfields are a family event every night in the spring, and ours are embarrassing.

So how did leadership in all these other cities have the vision College Station didn't have to get ahead of the game. And I had heard the guy who set up the Franklin complex used to be in College Station. How does that happen. And why did he leave?

Also, for the record I would support your vision for a conference center here if research deemed it viable. I realize my previous comment didn't reflect that.

There are many, many things that could benefit our community.

Bob Yancy said:

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Well I'm sure that is probably why TIB WAS put in motion. As for conditions, have you voiced your concerns to the Parks department? Volunteered for any committees? Spoken before council during hear visitors? These are sure fire ways to make a difference in your city. And as for Brian's park, the citizens just approved a bond election to upgrade most everything out there, because a duly elected council, citizen committees and staff identified it was needed, put it before the citizens and they said "yes" on Election Day. That project will start soon. The process works but demands your involvement.

Respectfully

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I have applied for several CS committees over the years but have never been selected. The last time, I kept up with the council meetings and saw that the committee I had applied to serve was decided by each council member choosing their preferred member(s). It was then that I realized that being selected for committee service would only happen if you had an 'in' with a council member. Very disheartening that, as a 30+ year resident of CS, I would likely never have a chance to serve and have an impact in the growth and development of the city. If this selection process has changed, I would definitely look at applying again.

Send me an email at byancy@cstx.gov when you apply and let me know what you're applying for and why. Will see what I can do.

Have a good evening.