HILLSBORO – Fifty years ago, a ballpark was built at Hare Field.
“We are very proud to be the oldest program in the city,” Hillsboro baseball coach Matt Bailie said. “But as other schools got new facilities, we were still sitting here with wooden dugouts and a backstop from 1965.”
Fifty years from now, Bailie strongly believes a ballpark will remain at the Hare Field sports complex thanks to a community-wide effort that has renovated Ad Rutschman Stadium.
“We had this big plan and we didn’t know what it was going to turn out like and it really turned out above our expectations,” said Bailie, a 1994 Hillsboro High School graduate who starred on the Spartans’ 1993 state championship baseball team. “We were able to put in some things that will really be able to benefit people 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road.”
The original home and visitor dugouts were torn down and replaced with larger dugouts that feature modern amenities such as hooks on the wall and three movable benches. A Hillsboro coaches office was built next to the home dugout as well as a spacious storage unit for the several machines needed for ballpark maintenance.
“No more rust from the rain,” Bailie said.
There also is a much taller, sturdier and more aesthetic backstop that is limiting the amount of foul balls lost. And down the left field line area, the home bullpen was nearly completely redone with a turf surface for year-round work for the Hillsboro pitching staff.
All together, a contractor told Bailie that the amount of work would have cost about $180,000 if the school hired a professional company to do it for face value.
“But we did it for less than half of that,” Bailie said.
The Hillsboro program spent $20,000 and Bailie said they received about “$65-75 thousand” in donations from the community and donated supplies from area companies.
The Hillsboro baseball team honored all of the hard work that went into the project in a “Grand Opening” ceremony last weekend during the team’s final OIBA summer baseball games. The Spartans, who swept Central Catholic in a doubleheader to end the season, honored all of the donors and business in an on-field ceremony between games.
Bailie and his players expressed sincere gratitude to the many companies who helped donate lumber, concrete and other essential items to help the ballpark project get done in a timely manner.
“I just thank them so much,” said Hillsboro pitcher Nat Richman, who graduated in June and played on the Spartans’ summer team. “They all did a really big thing helping us out. Even if they don’t watch baseball or even like baseball, that was a really big thing to have them help out the community the way they did.
“It was like every day in the offseason, from morning to night, people were working out here. They were either building this or that or working on the bullpen. Or getting rid of old wood and bringing in new wood, and laying sod. Just everything and we’re just so thankful.”
Richman, an all-Northwest Oregon Conference pitcher who will continue his career at Lewis & Clark College, remembers hearing about the renovation project when he joined the Hillsboro program as a freshman.
“I really didn’t think it’d get done in my four years here,” Richman said. “The field has always been nice, but the additions have made it so much better now. Everything is more tidy and organized. There’s no benches falling down, you won’t bang your head on any rusty nails. Everything is a lot more comfortable.”
Among the several unsung heroes of the project were people like Spartans junior varsity baseball coach Bob Berent – “I practically slept here most nights,” Berent said – and parent Ronnie Hobbs.
Hobbs, whose son, Brennyn Hobbs, graduated in June and played on the summer team, spent the past few years volunteering with his wife in the concession stand during games.
But over the past 12 months, Ronnie Hobbs gave even more of his time to do whatever task was needed at the ballpark site. He also helped run a pumpkin patch fundraiser last fall that was a huge success for the baseball program.
“You could tell just from its appearance that the stadium needed some help and I was happy to do my part,” said Hobbs, a truck broker in the transportation industry. “It was a lot more work than I anticipated, was definitely involved, but it’s so worth it to see it now.
“I hope when I grow old to be able to stop by here and say, ‘I was a part of that.’”
Note: The following businesses and organizations were honored for helping with the renovation project: Woodburn Construction Company, Withers Lumber, Building Material Supply, Rick’s Custom Fencing, Mutual Materials, Sherwin Williams Paint, American Landscape Supply, JB Lawn, WoodCo, Portland General Electric, A Cut Above Concrete Cutting, the City of Hillsboro, Turner Construction Company, Lifetime Exteriors, Decking Solutions, Lakeside Lumber, Muhly’s Garage Doors and the Hillsboro School District.
