Brady Davis doesn’t need a reminder of what the Skyview High School baseball fields looked like a short time ago.
“It was the definition of a dog park,” said Davis, a junior first baseman. “There were chewed-up tennis balls in the outfield … (The fields) were ripped up and just torn to shreds, so we put them back together.”
Back together in conditions that haven’t been seen for years. This spring marks the first time since 2016 that Skyview’s baseball teams are playing home games on campus. District money plus fundraising efforts by program supporters helped turn around the dormant fields into playable baseball fields for the Class 4A Storm.
No more de facto dog park.
For the previous six seasons, Skyview’s home away from home was Propstra Stadium at Hudson’s Bay High School because of unplayable field conditions. Although Propstra is a district stadium with a turf infield, it never felt like home for the Storm, players said. Varsity teams routinely played games under the lights at 7 p.m. and practices lasted well after 8 p.m.
At the time, home wasn’t an option. Former coach Seth Johnson, who resigned last fall after leading the Storm since 2014, made the decision ahead of the 2017 season to shut down Skyview’s fields for practices and games, citing player safety.
“Too many bumps and ruts,” Johnson said, “and the concern was that kids were going to twist an ankle or a knee, or get hit in the face by a baseball on a ground ball.”
Despite no true home field, Skyview sustained success. It went 17-0 during the abbreviated COVID spring season in 2021, and reached three straight 4A state semifinals 2017-19. It played for the 4A title in 2018.
This past off-season, district athletic director Dave Bennett said approximately $700,000 went into the varsity and junior-varsity fields. That included $400,000 for drainage, the main culprit for the fields’ problems. Other work included new soil on the infields, and upgraded pitchers’ mounds and bullpens. The district also is working to get permanent electricity to the varsity outfield scoreboard.
The lack of drainage has plagued Skyview’s fields for years. As far back as the 2002 and 2003 seasons under then-coach Jeff Thompson, Skyview played a combined four home baseball games those years because of field conditions.
Then, there’s the discussion of turf fields. Given the off-and-on field issues, are all-weather fields an option?
That’s more or less a wish-list item, Bennett said, adding that turf likely needs to come from a future bond measure. In 2018, VPS voters passed a $458 million capital construction bond that eventually led Columbia River, Fort Vancouver, Hudson’s Bay and Skyview to receive a turf football/soccer field. Fort also received a turfed softball field and Propstra Stadium’s infield got turf.
Neighboring Evergreen Public Schools now has turfed baseball and softball fields at all four of its comprehensive high schools after a 2018 bond measure passed by voters.
But as for Skyview’s new-and-improved fields, players couldn’t be happier. In addition to district funds, Skyview baseball supporters raised more than $12,000 to fund everything from equipment and refurbished dugouts to outdoor batting cages. Work began last summer, and truly became a team effort to get the fields into pristine shape.
The days of a tractor getting stuck in Skyview’s outfield are long gone, said first-year coach Brian Hansen.
“Now, when it rains, it drains right,” said Hansen, who was Fort Vancouver’s head coach in 2021 and ‘22. “The drains actually work. … The amount of work we had to put into the field to make it work was just a ton.”
In fact, players point to Hansen, a former Skyview assistant, who pushed for the fields to get up and running for 2023. Six years was too long of an absence.
“It was really cool to bring us back home,” Davis said, “just to try to have us kind of re-engage with the whole organization. It was really cool of him to get us all hooked around that.”
Senior pitcher Cody Blackhurst recalled as a youngster watching Skyview play baseball games on campus, and is enjoying the fruits of everyone’s labor in his final high school baseball season.
“And to work on the field for a while and just be connected even more in our brotherhood now that we’re at home,” he said.
