Colorado Rockies continue to help community and grow baseball
For most baseball fans the phrase, "if you build it, they will come," rings familiar. The movie, Field of Dreams, is fiction. But in Denver's Westwood neighborhood, the phrase is true.
"This is the Andres Galarraga Field. That was our first 'Field of Dreams' program that we started back in 1993," said Jim Kellogg, vice president of community and retail operations for the Colorado Rockies.
Every year since then, the field, located at the Owen Boys & Girls Club in Denver, gets transformed.
"We come out here every year with our groundskeeper, the whole grounds crew and some of our staff and we clean this entire field up, and get it ready to go," said Kellogg.
And when the kids see it, it's magical.
"The Rockies also always doing clinics with the kids, bringing baseball to their hands, bringing the players onto the field so they get to meet them," said Rachel Rooney, senior director of philanthropy for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver.
It's a partnership that continues to grow since the Rockies first came onto the Major League Baseball scene over 30 years ago. During that expansion year, the region wanted baseball in Colorado.
"Our state and this whole region was starving for baseball, so it was a great opportunity for us," said Kellogg.
That opportunity was born to help organizations to grow the game and provide kids with opportunities beyond baseball. Steve Martinez, branch director for the Owen Boys & Girls Club remembers games without a field and the Rockies partnership.
"It was basically throwing down some bases and not having base paths, not having backstops or places for them to really sit," said Martinez.
Since then, the Rockies have attached themselves to the Boys & Girls Club and 50 other fields within the community and even up to Casper, Wyoming. The team has invested more than $31 million since that first year.
The partnership with the Boys & Girls Club will continue for the next five years, according to Rooney. In the past, the Rockies have renovated the club's teen center and tech lab.
"It ensures that this club will carry on for the next five years, being able to serve roughly a thousand kids each year in this neighborhood," said Rooney.
Some kids that played at the Owen Boys & Girls Club made it far in baseball.
"We've had kids play in college baseball, that have played here. It's one of those things where they'll start here," said Martinez.
For the Rockies, the investment back into the region, doesn't stop at just baseball.
"Colorado Rockies are here and we're not going anywhere and we're excited and proud to try and make a difference in our community," said Kellogg.