Big League Neighbors

Highland Groves residents are going to have a big league neighbor, which is to say, Big League Dreams. This is a sports complex of ball fields, mostly baseball and softball, but also an indoor soccer field. This is being built by the Town of Gilbert and run by the Big League folks in a cooperation between public and private entities that should make Gilbert residents the better for it.

When I've posted on this in the past, I've incorrectly used the movie title "Field of Dreams" when talking about this; I'm trying to get the name straight for the future.

The Sixth Man, who lives in California when he isn't here designing plans for Morrison Ranch, took a little trip to an existing Big League Dreams park in California, and he snapped a few pictures for us to help our visualizing, and also so that he and The Mister could offer their input to the Town of Gilbert as the Elliot park is built. Here is the entrance:



You might remember that the premise is to build replicas of famous ballparks, like Wrigley Field, so that participants might fulfill some dreams of playing in those parks.

Here is a picture which, to my untrained eye, looks like kind of a boring picture of a parking lot:


But not so! It's a picture of the detail of the outside walls, and how they are constructed and maintained. One of the suggestions that The Sixth Man and The Mister will be making has to do with using a different material at the base of these walls. Oh, now I see.


This is a picture from the inside of the park. If you click your cursor on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the facade on the left of a painted crowd cheering on your home run:

There are several different fields in the complex; the Elliot Park version is scheduled to have 8 playing fields, each replicating a different park. One park they are hoping to include is Chase Field, though I don't know what feature they will try to use. It obviously could not be the roof, but perhaps they could paint in a swimming pool in right field.

We are optimistic that these folks will be great neighbors for Highland Groves; they have welcomed our input into their design process, and it seems like a great fit for Gilbert, as well.