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William Clay Ford Baseball Field in Midtown Detroit gets make-over
The Tigers head groundskeeper, Heather Nabozny worked alongside members from the organization and the Boys and Girls Club to spruce up the baseball field in Midtown Detroit.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - Even the smallest bit of TLC can transform a neighborhood baseball park in Detroit into a field of dreams
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So before the kids picked up their bats and gloves, volunteers grabbed the tools.
"We’re trying to clean up the field today for young kids, and just trying to make a difference," said Heather Nabozny, Tigers head groundskeeper. "We’re leveling out the home plate. We added a little dirt by the mound, we did some edging around the infield."
The Tigers head groundskeeper, Heather Nabozny worked alongside people from the organization and the Boys and Girls Club to spruce up William Clay Ford Field in Midtown.
Matthew Williams is the Tigers manager of Baseball Growth Initiatives.
"This is the little league field that Willie Horton played at," he said. "I feel like we’re on hallowed ground, knowing that a Detroit Tigers great learned how to play the game of baseball on this field."
For Williams, his connection to this field runs deep.
"My son plays here. So it’s great to see us put work into the field to make sure it’s in tip-top shape for the start of the season," he said. "I had to play on rocks and gravel. I was dodging rocks when i grew up playing in Detroit."
Williams says this project is one of several partnered with local businesses and organizations, to grow the game of baseball in urban communities.
According to Major League Baseball, the number of Black American players has dropped from 18 percent in 1991 to less than 6 percent last year.
It is the lowest since1955.
The Detroit Tigers are trying to improve that representation by tapping into the youth, to grow the game.
"We took the kids from the Detroit area down to Florida," he said. "We have two baseball and one softball team. It’s a pseudo-travel team."
"Driving by here, seeing the kids play on the field that we kind of took care of and cleaned up for them, brings me a lot of pride and a lot of pride in my fellow workers with the Tigers," Nabozny said.
This is the fourth of five fields that will be cleaned up.
Volunteers and the Tigers crew will work on Jayne Field next month - showing that it takes a village to make a field of dreams come true.
The Source: Information for this story is from interviews with the volunteers.