Ballpark maintenance up for debate

Curve’s lease with Lakemont Partnership due to expire at end of season

By Kay Stephens, kstephens@altoonamirror
HOLLIDAYSBURG — The responsibility for repairing or replacing the Blair County Ballpark infield that was too muddy to use Tuesday and Wednesday may be up for debate later this year.

Under current agreements, care and maintenance of the field and stadium rest with the Altoona Curve, ballpark landlord Ralph Albarano of the Lakemont Partnership said Friday.

But a lease between the Altoona Curve Baseball Club and Blair County is up for renewal after the Curve’s season ends, and club owner Chuck Greenberg said Friday that he wants to discuss the ballpark’s condition.

‘‘We brought in our architects to review the stadium ... and we were in the middle of that process [when this week’s drainage problem surfaced],’’ Greenberg said.

County solicitor Nathan Karn said the lease is part of a maze of documents signed 10 years ago with Albarano as project developer and the baseball club.

‘‘The real financial terms previously negotiated were between Ralph Albarano and the baseball club. We [the county] are like a pass-through agency,’’ Karn said.

Albarano said under the current agreements, the Curve must address the drainage problem.

‘‘The county doesn’t have any responsibility ... and as the landlord, we didn’t accept any responsibility for care and maintenance,’’ Albarano said. ‘‘That’s their issue.’’

The cost of replacing an infield and outfield could approach $850,000 to $1 million, baseball industry experts say.

Greenberg said his organization is trying to figure out why the field failed to drain and what can be done to fix it.

‘‘If there are short-term measures that can be taken, we’re going to do it,’’ he said.

“But if there are long-term measures, then that’s a discussion for another day,’’ Greenberg said.

If any of those measures come up during the pending lease renewal, the county will involve Albarano, Karn said.

“In anything we do concerning this, we’d keep Ralph in the loop,’’ Karn said.

Greenberg said the muddy field may be a result of two possibilities.

“One is the age of the field and the deterioration of the underground drainage system,” he said.

An average playing surface lasts about seven years, he said.

“We’ve treated this field much better than the norm ... but we knew the last couple of years that the field wasn’t draining as well,” he said.

The other possibility is an underground water problem.

“We’ve got a creek to the right and a creek to the left, and [the stadium] sits in the middle,” Greenberg said. “Perhaps we’ve got water from another source that’s contributing to the problem.”

He puts no blame on the weather or failing to have the field covered with a tarp last weekend when it rained.

“The rain last weekend was not unusual. ... What was unusual was that the field handled everything so poorly.”

To get the field dried out for Thursday’s games, large fans, including those used on the Steamer and Diesel Dawg inflatables, were used overnight Wednesday.

“We had fans blowing for 24 hours across the field,” Greenberg said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.