May 6, 2018 4 min read

The other day I dropped by a high school softball game at Bailey Park in Uniontown. There was a slight chill in the air; otherwise, it was a wonderful afternoon, although the home team lost.

It was a joy to see the girls compete. Uniontown fell by just a run.

It was marvelous hearing the ball fly off the bat. Crack! It was good seeing flyballs nestle in the gloves of outfielders. The Uniontown student on second base made several fine plays. One inning she assisted in all three outs.

A world record held by many, as The Gunner used to say.

The Red Raider pitcher was athletic, both toeing the rubber and at the plate.

Late in the game my attention was drawn to the larger field at Bailey Park; it’s cheek to jowl with the softball diamond.

This field, or at least a portion of it, was suddenly being invaded by what I later learned were Uniontown junior varsity softball players. They were playing catch, tossing to one another; two to a group.

I reveled in this use, however limited, of the “big” field at Bailey Park. True, the grass in the outfield was high enough to hide the players’ shoes, which made for an odd sight: it was if the girls were walking on their shins.

I noticed the infield seemed off-limits to the girls. There was a good reason for this. The infield looked more like a well-used brillo pad than an infield: ugly stumps of weeds clustered amidst patches of dark sand and dirt.

It was the infield time forgot.

My attention was drawn back to the game. Afterward I struck up a conversation with the Uniontown scorekeeper; it turns out she was the pitcher’s mother.

She explained her son played on the high school baseball team.

I asked her about the baseball field. An aging, weather-beaten sign in left center declares it is “the home of the Uniontown Red Raiders,” which is a misnomer writ large. The team plays its home games in Hopwood, at a ballpark owned and operated by South Union Township.

In regards to the sorry condition of the baseball field and the hope that Uniontown might have actually used Bailey Park for its games this year, the scorekeeper said to me, “The city let us down again.”

In more ways than one. On game day a wrecked Uniontown city police car and two city trucks plus a refugee from another era of automaking all together were parked in the parking lot adjacent to the softball field, taking up a half dozen or more parking spaces.

I ended up parking next to the curb on the street, practically beneath a no-parking sign.

At the time, I didn’t give much thought to the city vehicles. I somehow associated them with the game. Maybe the drivers were spectators.

A few days later, on a stroll, I walked from one end of Bailey Park to the other. I noticed with something close to horror that the two cars and two trucks were still there, in the same half dozen or so spaces. It quickly dawned on me — hey, I’m no dummy — these weren’t the cars of spectators. They had been placed there by the city. Bailey Park was being used as a junk yard.

Think of it: right across the street is the city street department (“streets, sewers, city improvements”). Why not park them there?

I’ll tell you why: city “leaders” do not care. Either that or they are as dumb as a ton of bricks. Maybe both.

It’s close to criminal the city’s mistreatment of Bailey Park and the young people who would play there if they had a field to play on and adults competent enough to form leagues.

The city can do neither. What an example of incompetence.

Casey Stengel, managing the worst team in the history of major league baseball, the 1962 New York Mets, looked down his bench one woeful afternoon and asked, “Does anyone here know how play this game?”

Does anyone in Uniontown city government know the first thing about good governance? In recent days, the big infield was relieved of weeds and the outfield was mowed. But does anyone seriously believe this means anything good in the long run for Bailey Park?

I can’t imagine it.

Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.