Work Under Way at Wildwood Park
Posted: October 22, 2010
DUGOUT WORK STARTS MONDAY
With the sewer/drainage work completed, work on the dugouts will begin on Monday as the Wildwood Baseball Park renovation project forges on. Your help is needed to complete this project. To date (Oct. 22), 31 generous community-minded citizens have made donations ranging from $5 to $500 for a total of $4,054. The Athletic Club continues to plead with the citizens of the area to contribute to the $200,000 project. No contribution is too small. The plan — just like winning ball games and every other Sheboygan A’s endeavor — is that success comes when everybody on the team contributes. We need you to join the team. All tax-deductible contributions should be sent to Sheboygan Athletic Club at P.O. Box 32, Sheboygan, WI 53082-0032. A monster THANK YOU goes out to our donors. If you are not among the heroes, we need you! We are inching our way up, but we have a long way to go.
Renovation Work Underway
at Wildwood Baseball Park
Several infrastructure components at the ballpark, built in 1981, are in the process of being replaced. Three years ago, the club launched Wildwood Rally, a drive to raise funds for the needed work.
Due to uncooperative economic times, fundraising was slow and the project had to be delayed.
Club officials ended the delay. The first two parts of the project – the replacement of the dugouts and the protective screen and netting – have begun.
Construction on the new dugouts is days away and new screen/netting project has begun with the placement of the net support poles.
In the future, the scoreboard and lights will be replaced, additional parking wil be secured and deck areas for fans will be constructed.
The total project will come to more than $500.000. The current project (dugouts and netting) will come to $200,000.
The club is in the process of raising money for the project and is asking baseball fans to contribute. Tax deductible contributions can be sent to Sheboygan Athletic Club, PO Box 32, Sheboygan, WI 53082-0032.
“Our decision to begin construction at this time may have been an emotional one,” A’s general manager Denny Moyer admitted. “We have had a tough year. We lost four people who were pillars of our organization – Stan Gehr, Chuck Zeichert, Snipe Van Veghel and most recently and completely unexpectedly, Arlyn Wiesman. Arlyn was the spearhead on this project, putting everything together. We are not going to let Arlyn down. For him, for Gates, Chuck and Snipe, we are going to do this.”
Wiesman died of a heart attack in August at age 58.
Wildwood Park’s first season was 1981. It was built to replace old Legion Memorial Park. The A’s contributed more than $30,000 to the initial construction. Then a major improvement took place in the winter of 1997-98, when the new grandstand was constructed along with the added restrooms, the pressbox, skybox and expanded concessions stand. The A’s, between contibutions and borrowing, paid $505,000 for that project.
The Sheboygan A's are members of the Wisconsin State League and Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League. The A's have helped develop more than 43 players that have reached professional baseball, including 2002 World Series Champion Jarrod Washburn (Anaheim Angels). All Sheboygan A's home games are played at Wildwood Baseball Park in Sheboygan. Connect with the A's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
