Diamonds precious commodity

Newport Beach Little League hadn’t seen numbers like this in its

22-year history.

More children signed up to play in the league last spring than

ever before.

The numbers read: 1,026, up from 958 in 2004 and 822 in 2003, the

year a trend began, according to Emery Molnar, the league’s president

who has been a board member for four years.

Homes, many custom-built, began sprouting up in Newport Coast, a

master-planned community developed by the Irvine Co. encompassing

seven square miles, in 1990.

But it wasn’t until the last few years those high-dollar homes

began blanketing the surrounding hills.

In less than two years, the number of homes popping up in Newport

Coast has ballooned. Many home buyers are families with children who

want to play sports.

Newport Beach Little League boundaries include Newport Coast,

thus, the league has welcomed greater numbers than arguably at any

time in its history.

“We are maxed out,” Molnar said.

The number of players isn’t the problem; the concern, Molnar said,

is where they are going to play.

As is the case in surrounding cities such as Costa Mesa, the

demand for field space is at an all-time high and the influx of homes

to Newport Coast with added residents figures to funnel even more

interested players into youth sports leagues.

So where will they blast a fastball down the third-base line, or

bend a 30-foot free kick around the left post?

The City of Newport Beach, for instance, allocates eight fields to

NBLL: two at Bonita Canyon Sports Park, three at Lincoln Elementary

and one each at Buffalo Hills, San Miguel and Andersen School. League

teams also use the private Newport Ridge Park in Newport Coast, but

Molnar said only for practices.

The park is controlled by a homeowners’ association and priority

sides with the residents.

With the surge in enrollment, the facilities can’t handle the

number of teams that need them.

To answer, the league has slashed games in some age groups and cut

practice time in half in some instances.

In 2002, teams in the Majors division played 20 games a season.

Last year, they played 16, Molnar said.

Teams often have to share fields during practices.

For example, a team who used to receive two hours of practice time

on a particular field might now be asked to share the field and

batting cages for one hour at each station, Molnar said.

Scheduling becomes even trickier when sports seasons overlap and

teams from baseball and soccer leagues are requesting field space,

though Molnar said inroads have been made in that department in

recent years.

To accommodate the incoming players, Molnar said rosters may need

to expand from the current 12 kids per team.

“But that is an artificial way to lower playing time,” Molnar

said. “We cannot turn people away.”

About 25% of NBLL’s 1,026 registered players last year reside in

Newport Coast, Molnar said.

As of 2000, Newport Coast’s population checked in at 2,671. Upon

completion of Newport Coast, which Irvine Co. officials expect in

2009 excluding custom home construction, the number of “luxury

residences” is expected to reach 5,150. The figure includes 2,550

residences in the Newport Ridge planned community.

Newport Ridge Park contains two baseball fields and an area for

soccer, though the fields aren’t in playable condition for games,

said Marie Knight, director of recreation and senior services for the

city of Newport Beach.

Dave Gennrich has lived in Newport Coast for seven years and said

more could be done to improve the park.

“It sits there empty all the time,” said Gennrich, whose

11-year-old son Cole plays club soccer. “There is a huge grassy area

that could hold four full baseball diamonds across, along with three

or four soccer fields. It could also be used for football.” Gennrich

said that, often, the only activity he sees at the park are people

throwing Frisbees for their dogs.”

The park is private and operated by the Newport Ridge Community

Association via Merit Property Management.

An additional park will be built at the top of Ridge Park Road in

the next two years, which will include two baseball fields with a

soccer field overlay, additional basketball courts and a group picnic

area, said Irvine Co. spokesman John Christensen.

The city will oversee that park.

Newport Coast was annexed to Newport Beach on Jan. 1, 2002.

Jim McGee, a Newport Coast resident since 1997 who chaired a

residents’ committee that helped spearhead the annexation, called the

lack of fields in Newport Coast a “critical shortage.”

McGee said children often have to drive across the Back Bay to

places like the West Newport Community Center and Newport Harbor High

for basketball games. Parents with children involved with the

American Youth Soccer Organization might have to drive to Eastbluff

Park, about a 15- to 20-minute ride depending on what area of Newport

Coast they come from.

McGee, president of the Pelican Hill Homeowners Association and

vice president of the Newport Coast Master Association, presided over

Newport-Mesa Junior All-American Football from 1997 to 2003.

When he first came on as commissioner, the league had roughly 100

children enrolled. When he left, that count had increased to 200.

Last year, the league enjoyed a spike in figures again, to about 250,

McGee said.

The number of players might have increased, but the available

field space didn’t.

The league still conducts practices and games at one site -- at

Bonita Creek Park near the corner of University Drive in Newport

Beach.

McGee said during his last year in 2003, five teams with age

levels starting at 7 and going to 13, practiced on the same field

simultaneously.

“We were concerned older kids would overrun their part of the

field and run into the 7-year-olds,” McGee said. “Last year, they had

seven teams and so they started younger kids earlier in the day and

then four older teams would finish practice from 4 to 9 p.m. But if

that trend continues, coaches would have to start practice at 3:30

p.m. and some will be up against it.”

McGee said relief is in sight with proposed construction of a

community center on the corner of Newport Coast Drive and San Joaquin

Hills Road.

But scheduled construction of the center has raised ire among some

residents and the fate of the facility remains in question.

The proposed center offers one full-length basketball court, three

side-to-side courts and also houses youth volleyball matches.

Indoor basketball and football are two sports with the most

“critical shortages,” McGee said. He said finding practice time at

gyms across Newport Beach is “all but impossible.”

Knight concurred.

“This is a daily struggle to find field space for all of the youth

sports teams and we are constantly reinventing our formula and

policies to attempt to meet the growing demands,” Knight said in an

e-mail to the Daily Pilot. “Newport Coast is right in the mix of that

struggle. However, we cannot create something out of what we do not

have. The bottom line is that there is only so much open space to go

around and soon there will need to be some changes in the sports

organizations themselves and the way they do business as far as the

numbers or ages they serve: how they carve up their field time and

caps on registration.”

McGee said Bonita Canyon Sports Park has helped assuage field

scarcity for youth baseball in Newport Beach.

McGee’s three children, who include former Sage Hill volleyball

and basketball standout Kevin Joyce and current Lightning quarterback

Jamie McGee, have played sports they wanted despite the apparent lack

of facilities nearby.

Molnar said there is no charge to use the fields at Newport Ridge

Park, but he said money is often spent on improvements such as bases

or new clay or brick dust for the infield.

About 80% of Newport Coast and 24% of the Newport Ridge planned

community are preserved for open space, which allots approximately

7,500 acres of permanent parks, wildlands and hiking and biking

trails, according to Irvine Co. figures.

McGee knows his hopes for added fields are likely in vain.

“Unfortunately, all of the usable land in Newport Coast is spoken

for,” he said. “There can’t be any possible sports parks in the

future because there isn’t any place to put them. Newport Coast is a

planned community.”

But Knight said there is one final opportunity for additional

sports fields in Newport Beach.

City officials are in the process of acquiring property on the

corner of Superior Avenue and Coast Highway, Knight said.

Upon completion of the acquisition, “we will move forward with

community outreach to determine what type of active use will be

there. This will greatly alleviate the shortage of fields on the west

side of town.”

In the meantime, McGee said the degree of shortage might have been

avoided or lessened with better planning.

The Irvine Co. worked with city and county officials, residents

and community groups during public planning of each Newport Coast

neighborhood, which included park design they felt was important,

Christensen said.

“The area has developed faster than we thought because of the

demand for property,” McGee said.