Gaffney Field has received a million-dollar facelift.
The Boys &Girls Club of Everett, in partnership with Everett Community College, Snohomish County Parks and Recreation and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, renovated the aging grass-and-dirt baseball/softball field in north Everett last fall, transforming it into an artificial-turf facility, complete with new dugouts, a new scoreboard, lighting and upgraded bleachers.
“It’s a state-of-the-art facility for kids,” Bill Tsoukalas, executive director of the Boys &Girls Clubs of Snohomish County, said. “It’s a place for kids to go and have fun. It’s a great asset for north Everett.”
The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation was formed in 2001 by future Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. and his brother, Bill Ripken, as a way to honor their father, the former manager of the Baltimore Orioles. The foundation refurbishes baseball and softball fields around the country.
“(The Ripken Foundation) started reaching out to people like us who were in need of fields,” Tsoukalas said. “We knew we had a field (at the Everett Boys &Girls Club) that we wanted to upgrade and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to find a way to come up with the matching funds.”
Tsoukalas turned to Everett CC, which uses Gaffney Field as the home for its softball team.
“There is a lack of all-weather fields in Snohomish County,” said Pat Sisneros, the vice president of college services at Everett CC. “So if each of us could contribute … it would serve both county purposes, the Boys &Girls Club and the college. The college invested money and the Boys &Girls Club got dollars from the Cal Ripken Foundation and then Snohomish County invested dollars, and that’s how the field came to be.”
The final cost of the renovation was “around $1 million,” Sisneros said. “The college invested $250,000, the Ripken Foundation $250,000 and the county $500,000.”
The Boys &Girls Club wasn’t part of the deal financially. According to Tsoukalas, the club “had the existing field and (the college, Snohomish County and the Ripken Foundation) provided the funding to make it happen.”
The renovation was performed by the Ripken Foundation and Fields, Inc., a company that installed the playing surfaces at Target Field in Minneapolis, home of Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins, and Lambeau Field, home to the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
The renovation of Gaffney Field was completed in six weeks in the fall of 2014.
The dimensions of the new field are a bit smaller than before: 205 feet down the right- and left-field lines and 220 to center. The extra space behind the outfield fence is now a drainage field for the new all-weather surface.
The members of the Everett CC softball team are thrilled with the new field.
“This is the best thing to happen to the program,” said Randy Smith, who is in his 12th season as Everett CC’s softball coach. “The players are ecstatic. They can’t wait to come to practice everyday. It’s their home and they love it. Period.
“We were a kind of reluctant at first,” Smith said of the switch from grass and dirt to artificial turf. “We’re old-school. We like the dirt. But now that (we’re here), we like it. Our practice time is full practice time. It’s not time spent fixing the field because it rains. We get out here, we get our couple of hours in and we’re done. As coaches (the field) has made our game better.”
Everett CC sophomore first baseman and team captain Kaylin Mallery has played on both surfaces.
“You’ll get more true hops on the turf than the dirt,” she said. “You always had to rake out (the old field). The dirt would get all messy. The hops would get ugly.”
Thanks to the new surface, softball can be played rain or shine, which is just fine with Mallery.
“I don’t really mind the rain. I feel like it gives me more energy,” she said. “When it rains, I’m more into the game.”
Everett CC officials are counting on there are being more players like Mallery who enjoy playing in less-than-ideal conditions. The college has signed a 15-year lease that will keep the Trojans at Gaffney Field until 2030.
“In return for the capital investment, we’re getting the rent for a long period of time at no cost to us,” Sisneros said. “We used local funds to do that, not* state capital funds. So it’s a capital investment in consideration for rent reduction. It works well for all parties.”
Along with Everett CC’s use of the complex, Tsoukalas said the field will be used by the Boys &Girls Club, and perhaps by area youth teams.
“The kids who come to that club, for the most part, come from surrounding neighborhoods,” Tsoukalas said. “They’re kids that come from lower- to moderate-income families and they get a state-of-the-art facility that is available to them that is equal to, or better than, any facility in Everett.”
Ripken Jr. to attend ribbon-cutting ceremony
One box remains unchecked in the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation’s $1 million renovation of Gaffney Field in north Everett.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Everett Community College athletic director Larry Walker said Wednesday that the ceremony has been scheduled for noon on May 20, and that Baseball Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken Jr. is scheduled to attend.
Ripken spent 21 seasons in the major leagues, all with the Baltimore Orioles, and holds the major-league record for consecutive games played at 2,632.
He will be on hand for the dedication of a plaque, installed by the Ripken Foundation, commemorating the field. The Ripken Foundation is named in honor of Ripken’s father, a former manager of the Orioles.
* Correction, May 9, 2015. The original article suggested state capital funds were used in the renovation.
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