Brooks College Prep Academy wants to use its own field

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Updated: August 30, 2011 12:15AM

The baseball field out back of Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep Academy at 111th and King Drive is a real gem — grass infield, built-in sprinkler system, lights, concession stand and press box.

There are college teams that don’t have fields nearly as nice, which is why Chicago State University plays its home games there.

The kids from Brooks would just like to know when they will get their own turn to play on the field.

I could hear one of them asking Brooks Athletic Director Clark Morgan that very question when Morgan answered his cell phone from the field Wednesday evening, the wind crackling through the phone obscuring some of their words but none of their frustration.

It was a beautiful afternoon for baseball, as the Major League announcers might say, the rare 80-degree-plus spring day with the rain that would move through later in the evening still far in the distance.

But Morgan and the freshman-sophomore baseball players from Brooks and visiting Harlan High were staring forlornly at an unplayable field before the first drop fell, the home plate area and baselines soaked to the point of being unsafe by the sprinkler system.

The part that really burned, though, was Morgan’s claim the waterlogged condition of the field was the result of intentional sabotage — the latest chapter in a running dispute with the Roseland Little League over who controls this inner-city diamond paradise.

“It’s been an ongoing battle all year about when we can play and when we can’t play,” said Morgan.

The Roseland Little League, one of the preeminent youth baseball programs in the city, built and maintains the field. But the property is owned by Chicago Public Schools, and the Brooks’ baseball teams are supposed to be able to use it during the high school baseball season, Morgan said.

Sadly, however, this has led to a series of conflicts this season that on numerous occasions have forced Brooks to cancel its games, as Morgan eventually did this night, too.

Roseland Little League President Maurice Johnson denied there was any intentional effort to block Brooks from using the field on this night or any other.

The problem, he said, is that Brooks officials failed to inform the Little League of their plans to hold a game.

“They don’t want to cooperate with the rules. They refuse to accept the fact they must go through us for scheduling,” said Johnson, who called me back minutes later to correct himself after learning that Brooks had indeed asked for the field.

This may seem like a silly matter. Check that, it doesn’t just seem silly. It is silly. But look at the result.

“We’ve got 25 kids standing around bored to death instead of playing recreational baseball,” Morgan said. “This is baseball season. Everywhere else in America high school kids are playing baseball. We can’t even get in a game on our home field.”

“You’ve got kids on the sidelines that are losing out. Don’t forget we’re in Roseland, one of the highest crime areas in the city. And you’re talking about trying to be positive and doing positive things for these kids.”

Even as he spoke, Morgan fretted that he was going too far by discussing the problem outside channels instead of leaving that to his superiors in the school system. But the frustration was just too much for him to play it safe.

I need to be a little careful myself here because I’m sure I’m not getting the whole story, and I don’t want to portray the Roseland Little League folks as the villains. There’s undoubtedly some history here. There always is.

These kinds of disputes over ball fields are actually pretty common in the city — the result of inadequate recreational facilities for all our young people.

In a way, it’s almost more amazing that the Brooks’ kids would have an opportunity to play on a field like this than that it would be taken away from them.

Brooks, for those who can’t place it, took over the site of the old Mendel Catholic High School in 1998. Roseland Little League constructed the field a few years later under a 50-year lease with CPS.

Back at the ball field, the automatic sprinkler system was still running in the outfield, forcing Morgan to send the teams home. You can play baseball in the rain, but you can’t play it in the sprinklers.

Adults are always going to have these types of disputes. But you’d like to think they could put them aside for the sake of the kids.