B-W Baseball Alumni Kick Off Home Runs for Heritage Campaign

Heritage Field has come a long way since the 1950s, when a rudimentary ball field with a couple of benches and a chicken-wire backstop was carved out of abandoned farmland on the east end of the Baldwin-Wallace College campus.

Today, it has one of the best playing fields in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and the facilities around it have steadily improved since the Yellow Jackets hosted back-to-back OAC championship tournaments in the mid-1980s. Just a few years ago, an eight-foot-high outfield fence was installed, and last season saw the debut of permanent bleachers.

But one thing about Heritage Field hasn’t changed in 50 years: There’s still no press box.

While our rivals’ ballparks, like John Carroll’s Schweikert Field and Otterbein’s Fishbaugh Field, have been upgraded with new press boxes in recent years, Heritage Field’s “press box” is nothing but a wooden shack with a beat-up scorer’s table that sits behind the backstop. It’s an eyesore, and it obstructs the view from our new bleachers.

For the last few years, the B-W baseball alumni have been raising money to build a new, modern press box facility with a team meeting room and training table, a recruiting office, a concession stand and restrooms.

This week we kicked off the “Home Runs for Heritage” campaign. We’re asking all of our alums to pledge a donation for every home run the Yellow Jackets hit during the 2007 season. All of the money raised will be contributed to the Heritage Field fund at B-W to help pay for the design and construction of our new press box.

We’re also inviting fans and supporters of the B-W baseball program to join us in our campaign.

Please help us by pledging whatever you can to the Home Runs for Heritage campaign. As a guide to your pledge, the Jackets have averaged about 25 home runs a season since 1995. No pledge is too small! We need as many pledges as we can get to demonstrate the support for a new press box to the college’s new administration.

You can make your pledge online at the Home Runs for Heritage home page, or you can send your pledge by e-mail message to heritage@bwbaseball.com.

Thank you for supporting the Home Runs for Heritage campaign!

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