A business proposal has the potential to revitalize a county park near Waynesville. But if accepted, the Bartholomew County Park Board might lose most of their control over the facility.
The Demand Command (DC) baseball/softball program is offering to upgrade two non-lighted little league diamonds at Wayne Park, located near the intersection of County Road 550S and State Road 11, according to park board president Dennis Pierce.
“They are inquiring about making it a home base for practices,” Pierce said. “Right now, we are in an exploratory fact-finding mission concerning goals and ideals.”
With 33 teams in Ohio and Indiana, the DC baseball and softball organization originated as a pitching school headed by former Colorado Rockies pitcher Zach McClellan. Now retired from professional sports, McClellan heads the training program for employees at Columbus-based LHP Engineering Solutions.
But over the past 12 years, McClellan’s DC program has been used to teach life lessons such as leadership, hard work, determination, discipline, teamwork, character and dealing with success and failure, he said.
And with key instructors such as former New York Yankees hitting coach Alan Cockrell, the training provided through DC has helped a number of students receive college scholarships, McClellan said.
The park board is likely to give the DC proposal an extensive amount of thought, Pierce said.
“No, it would not make Wayne Park exclusively theirs,” Pierce said. “But (DC) would get to control the schedule for the park. That would only be right, if they invest.”
In recent weeks, officials with McClellan’s organization have been meeting with Adam Fish, who is in charge of maintenance for Dunn Stadium, to discuss what DC wants to do with Wayne Park in more detail, Pierce said.
The park board president said the park’s current diamonds are “not up to par,” and maintenance has remained a significant concern.
But accepting McClellan’s help means that instead of the public, DC baseball and softball will be given priority regarding the use of the park, including scheduling practices and events, Pierce said.
Demand Command is experiencing growth in the Columbus area, which includes a recent partnership with the Maximum Velocity Performance (MVP) sports clinic on Ray Boll Boulevard, McClellan said.
That clinic has indoor state of the art equipment that measures velocity, the location of a pitch and the spin rate of the ball, McClellan said.
Most of the DC teams in Indiana use facilities in Columbus, and having quality diamonds at Wayne Park for practice and tournaments is pivotal for the future of the program in Bartholomew County, McClellan said.
But besides the baseball diamonds, Wayne Park also has a picnic area, shelter, playground, horseshoe courts, basketball area and accessible trail, according to the Bartholomew County website.
The park board wants to set some expectations from Demand Command because Wayne is a public park, its president said.
“We’re looking now at what they think versus what we think, and hopefully find a middle approach,” Pierce said in regard to McClellan’s proposal.
While McClellan said the diamonds will be used frequently, he wants local residents to continue viewing Wayne Park as their own, he said. And if revitalized, the park will become an asset that instills pride in the entire community, he said.
Currently, a five-year plan is being written for the 12 county-owned parks, including Wayne. Last November, parks consultant Kris Medic said that plan might recommend some existing county parks be abandoned.
Updated information on the proposal will likely be brought before the Bartholomew County Park Board when they meet at 4:30 p.m. April 4. The meeting will be in the first floor county commissioners chambers at the Bartholomew County Governmental Office building at Third and Franklin streets.
