Letter to the Editor: There is No Shortage of Baseball Fields in Scarsdale

This Letter to the Editor was written by Gerald Antell Alan Garfunkel and John Lofaso, Co-Chairs: Crossway Lights Committee--- West QR Neighborhood Assoc.

Scarsdale does not have a baseball field shortage.

We read Mayor Veron's comments in the minutes from the June 14, 2022 Village Board meeting. In the Little League Lights and Fields section, Mayor Veron notes: “There is often a shortage of playable fields, and we struggle to meet the demand.”

We have attached the Baseball Field Use Summary that we compiled on May 23, 2022.

Please note that all information in the Summary was obtained from the Master Schedules for Scarsdale Little League (SSL), Girl's Rec. Softball and Scarsdale Youth Soccer Club (SYSC). Girl's Travel Softball does not post a Master Schedule on the web; field use information for this ISO came from Rich Massaroni of the Rec. Dept.

As the Summary shows, there were a total of 1,144 UN-USED, EMPTY baseball fields for the Spring, 2022 season during normal, play-time hours.

In fact, Scarsdale has a rather large baseball field surplus.

There are MORE THAN TWICE AS MANY EMPTY, UN-USED baseball fields each week during normal play-time hours than the total weekly games played by SSL.

Nevertheless, the SLL continues to publicly state that there is a field shortage and has proposed a lighted field to alleviate it. SLL further states that they are “turning away kids” from little league due to this “shortage”.

These statements from SSL are untrue, as clearly shown on the attached summary. This is simple arithmetic. SLL has made a choice to not use the fields that are available RIGHT NOW.

There is ZERO NEED for more baseball fields and ZERO NEED for a lighted baseball field.

Sincerely,
Gerald Antell Alan Garfunkel John Lofaso
Co-Chairs: Crossway Lights Committee--- West QR Neighborhood Assoc.

Responding to the letter above, David Krembs said:

"What about bad weather? What about wet fields?

What about availability of coaches and players?

What about the constraint that certain types of games (like 60/90 baseball) can only be played on certain fields (like Crossway and Hyatt)?

What about time constraints like playoff games that must be completed by a certain date, or makeup games that need to be squeezed back into an existing schedule in order to qualify for the playoffs?

Is it possible that the field schedule has empty space for those valid reasons? And is it possible that even with empty space on the schedule, it's still difficult to schedule games for those (and perhaps other) valid reasons? Which brings me to...

Have you asked the coaches and coordinators who actually schedule games (and who actually deal with real-world constraints) to explain what challenges they face and how lights would help?

I have read your analysis of field usage (it's a quick read), and I don't see how you can conclude that "There is No Shortage of Baseball Fields in Scarsdale" until you can show that you've accounted for all of that."