If You Build It, They Will Come

The music blares from the speakers behind the backstop as the players’ parents pull into parking spaces one by one, next to the softball field at East Providence High School. Coach Traverse shuts the door of his car, carrying his gym bag slung around his shoulder and a clipboard folded under his arm. He begins to walk down the hill towards the field, waving at the families of the players who are scattered about the grass in lawn chairs. They wave back to him and smile. He walks along the length of the steel fences, past the pitchers’ bullpen and eventually makes his way into the Townies’ home dugout, to his seat on the bench. None of this existed just three years ago.

To go back.

There were no speakers, no steel fences, no bullpen, and certainly no dugout. Players arrived at a sandlot in the backyard of the school. The field, who’s upkeep fell under the responsibility of the maintenance team, was never actually tended to. The infield could never fully be appreciated, as the sand was actually just dirt from the ground that was never turned over, making it into a hard, clay-like surface. Then there were the weeds. The weeds poked up through the clay in such volume that from far away the infield appeared to be just a lighter shade of green than the outfield’s thick, knee-length grass. Oh the outfield,- don’t get them started on the outfield. The outfield was really just a vast grassland that stretched out for many yards in both directions. It made it so that if a ball was ever hit over an outfielder’s head, it would just keep rolling and rolling before the fielder caught up to it. Almost every ball hit to the outfield was a homerun.

Although there was a back-stop, the structure cut off abruptly on either side so that there was no fence to protect the players in the dugouts, or the parents in the bleachers, next to the dugouts. But, “dugout” is a pretty generous word for the 10-foot-long bench that stood alone in the itchy tall grass.

Needless to say, the field was used only for practices. When it was a game time, the team bussed to a nearby field complex owned by the city, because their home field was sadly unserviceable.

“What a huge difference it is now. I remember the day Rob decided he would fix it up,” said Pam Traverse, Coach’s wife. She stands inside the snack shack,- which the team built themselves- and leans on the windowsill by her elbows. Pam is a petite, middle-aged woman and loyal wife. She’s comes to every single game, and flips burgers for the snack shack. The families know her almost as well as they know Coach. “I even remember the day he made the girls rip the field up during practice. He brought a bunch of rakes and a whole lot of sand from Home Depot. The girls were not happy about it. They spent hours ripping up the old infield and laying down a new layer of sand. But look what they have now,” she points to the final product.

What was once a lifeless sandbox is now a pristine softball field with a strong fence surrounding its circumference. An American Flag stands tall just behind the fence in center field. Bleachers were moved behind the backstop, along a speaker system. A student announcer hosts every game. A digital scoreboard was constructed behind left field, along with brand new brick dugouts for both the home and away teams.

The girls play catch in the outfield to warm up their arms before the games, as one of them yells to her teammate, “Bri! You forgot to put the bases in!” Bri drops her glove and leaves her throwing partner as she runs quickly to a closet in the home team’s dugout. She grabs three bases and runs first to the 3rd base location, then 2nd and 1st,- pounding the bases into the ground each time.

“Each of us has a job,” says Alyssa Guarino, senior and catcher for the East Providence Lady Townies. She unrolls the mic and plugging it into the speaker system for the volunteer student announcer. “Before and after every game, it’s my job to set up and break down the speaker system. It’s kinda the easiest job, I know. But I used to have to drag the trash all the way to the dumpster behind right field. I hated that job.” Alyssa is dressed in her uniform; red socks, grey pants and matching shirt. Her hair is pulled back into a low messy bun and she has eye black smeared underneath her eyes.

“I was a freshman the day that Coach decided to rip the field up,” she said. “I remember I had to walk very slowly around the outfield with a bucket and collect every single stray rock out there. He wanted to lay down new sod.” She finishes plugging in all the wires and begins to test the mic. “He deserves to have this field named after him. Look at him.” She laughs and points to the coach, who is riding a tractor like a chariot around the infield dragging a rake behind him. “He’s out here managing this field every day, rain or shine.”

As the game begins, and the Townies send their first player up to bat, the coach makes his way to the 3rd base line. The batter steps out of the batter’s box and looks at Coach to receives his signals. He begins to move his hands very fast tapping different points of his body, looking at the batter. He touches his elbow, ear, nose, chin, the top of his cap, he swipes his leg, knocks his fists together and then claps and points at her. No one watching him could understand what he was saying. But she did. She nods and steps into the batter’s box, ready to go.

“In order to play like you’re a decent player, you have to feel like you’re a decent player. And decent players should have a decent field to play on,” says Coach Rob Traverse. “When you’re base lines are crisp and white and your warming up to pump-up music that is loud and clear through the speakers, it creates an atmosphere of legitimacy. These girls work so hard every day to come out here and give it their all, they deserve that from their school in return. We want to give them everything they need.”