A New Youth Baseball Mecca

by Ken Hambleton

The idea is simple and often repeated.

As W.P. Kinsella wrote in Field of Dreams, Build it and they will come, Jeff Maul and a host of partners are going to live up to that motto.

The shared vision that built Haymarket Park, Pinnacle Bank Arena and the world-record crowd for women’s sports—volleyball in Memorial Stadium —Maul and company see a giant project in youth baseball in the future for Lincoln.

Maul, the chair of the Lincoln Visitors and Convention Bureau, and member of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, has partnered with a host of baseball enthusiasts to start construction of a new youth baseball mecca in northwest Lincoln.

The $30 million plan to build seven baseball-softball diamonds and one covered baseball facility and another covered stadium for softball has already started.

By August 2023, the dirt at 1st and Cornhusker was moving.

By the spring of 2025, there will be a youth baseball-softball complex, diamonds for Nebraska Wesleyan softball and baseball and likely much more on the road between downtown Lincoln and the Lincoln Airport.

“This has been a project that we’ve worked on and studied for 17 years and now it’s all coming together,” said Maul. “We began talking about better and more baseball and softball facilities in Lincoln long ago.

“With a bigger stage, we can build bigger events and attract more people to Lincoln,” he said.

Youth baseball and softball tournaments can get people to “as they say in the tourism business, to linger longer,’” Maul said. 

It can mean a lot for Lincoln and Nebraska.

Dozens of local softball and baseball youth teams travel to Des Moines, Iowa, Kansas City, Missouri, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. and other destinations every summer. 

Lincoln wants to join in the fun.

“There is enough community interest,” said Maul. “We have a pretty deep knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work in all these years of going to youth baseball games in other cities, including Omaha,” said Maul. 

With help from former Major League all-star and Nebraska baseball coach Darin Erstad, plans have been refined and momentum has been built to make Lincoln a partner in the fun that’s enjoyed across the country.

“Even with Den Hartog (the only artificial turf diamond in Lincoln), Sherman Field, Densmore Park, the Doris Bair Softball Complex and other fields, we know there is a need for more opportunity for baseball and softball in Lincoln,” Maul said. 

Maul said the city lacks field inventory. 

Baseball and softball for everybody is the idea.

“Special Olympics, developmental programs and top-level youth tournaments can all be a part of our future with the new complex,” he said.

Partners including the city of Lincoln, NEBCO (which partnered with the city and the University of Nebraska to build the Haymarket Park complex), Erstad, former Major League All-Star Alex Gordon, Sampson Construction, Union Bank and Nebraska Wesleyan have already donated and pledged more than half of the funds to build the new complex.

Future plans for the site include indoor practice facilities, possible hotels and other housing plans, more restaurants and sports bars and even a water park in the area that once was home to a dog run, just north of Oak Lake.

“Some people were willing to push away from the table when the pandemic hit a couple of years ago, but we knew if we kept pushing we could have an answer to our dreams,” Maul said.  

The project, now it’s started, should proceed quickly. The idea is to put an artificial turf field on level ground, Maul said.  “We can become a regional and even national destination for youth baseball,” he said.