WATCH: Majestic Park fields nearing playable condition

Babe Ruth Field at Majestic Park awaits the final pieces of its backstop netting before the college-sized field will be ready for play. All five fields at Majestic Park are almost ready for competition with baseball season just around the corner. - Photo by Tyler Wann of The Sentinel-Record
Babe Ruth Field at Majestic Park awaits the final pieces of its backstop netting before the college-sized field will be ready for play. All five fields at Majestic Park are almost ready for competition with baseball season just around the corner. - Photo by Tyler Wann of The Sentinel-Record


With baseball season just around the corner, all five fields at Majestic Park are almost ready for play.

The collegiate-sized Babe Ruth Field is the field closest to being completed, and it just needs the final pieces of backstop netting installed before being ready for competition.

Majestic Park has dealt with supply chain issues and multiple delays on pieces around the venue, but enough pieces have finally arrived so that all fields are nearing playable condition.

Video not playing? Click here https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Fv36-FFnec

"I like to say we're about 85 to 90% complete," Majestic Park General Manager Derek Phillips said. "There's a couple of small things I'm waiting on to get done, and they're all happening this month. A lot of the stuff has come in."

Phillips said that many of the pieces the park has waiting on the entire fall started to arrive on Dec. 23.

The park started to install backstop padding and netting over the past week at Babe Ruth Field.

"By the end of next week we're going to be ready to play ball on (Babe Ruth Field)," Phillips said. "By the end of the month we'll be able to play ball on those four fields."

Despite most of the pieces finally arriving at Majestic Park, some things like the park's sound system are still yet to arrive.

"I don't know what the reason for whatever materials in speakers, speaker boxes and outdoor speaker boxes and cabling may be -- I don't know why that's not here," Phillips said. "It's just not."

Although the four smaller fields, Jackie Robinson Field, Honus Wagner Field, Cy Young Field and Hank Aaron Field, will be ready by the end of the month, there will still be more pieces to add to the venue.

"We'll probably have things going on through the entire spring of additions to the park," Phillips said. "We've got a sign program that I'm really excited about that displays the history of the park. We'll have 'you are here' maps in the park, and the Babe Ruth Statue, that's not set to unveil until early May."

Overall, the most important thing is that all the fields are ready for play.

"By the end of January the four fields are going to be playable with netting and padding and wind screen and bases and everything they need," Phillips said. "That's the most important thing. We can work around everything else."

Signage, logos and other small details will be worked on throughout the spring.

"Once we hit Memorial Day, I'd say the park is 99% complete," Phillips said. "We're just really looking then to do any kind of additions we want to do. We've talked about additional fencing in places or maybe in the future an expansion of a playground or an additional playground."

Majestic Park is also bringing recreational baseball to Hot Springs for children aged 5 to 15 years old.

Around 40 players signed up to play on the very first day when registration opened Jan. 10, and that number tripled in just a few days.

Registration lasts throughout the entire month of January and into the first part of February. Phillips anticipates anywhere from 450 to 600 players will sign up to play.

"I've been doing recreational programming since 1996, and people don't sign up on the first day for the most part," Phillips said. "With the new park and everything coming, there's a lot of interest, and I get that. I think it's a really good sign that our community is eager to get baseball back going in Hot Springs."

Phillips said the recreational baseball program in Hot Springs has been gone for five seasons, and now that program is coming back to a city with so much baseball history.

"I just think baseball is so popular in town," he said. "All the high schools have programs. There's two colleges that play their home games here. The historic baseball trail and the history of baseball in Hot Springs."

The return of recreational baseball and the completion of Majestic Park means a lot to Phillips after he ran programs at the Boys and Girls Club on the same site from 2002 to 2008.

"It was one of the greatest runs of my life running any programming," he said. "I really enjoyed my time here, and it's a big part of the reason I'm back. We had a lot of fun there, and we provided for a lot of kids, and it was great programming, but the facility had been there since the 40s. It needed to be updated. To come into this park and have this just first class, top notch facility -- it just means a lot."

While the community has missed out on recreational baseball for a significant period of time, Phillips emphasized that it is coming back in style to the Spa City.

"There's a lot of passion for baseball here in this community," Phillips said. "The players, boys and girls, have not had a place to play baseball in their own community the last few years. That's sad, and I'm so glad we're providing this, the facility itself. There's not another facility like this in the state that's this nice for recreational programming for kids to play."


Upcoming Events