Parks and Recreation Department staff smooth out one of the fields at Big Howe Park in Upper Queen Anne last month. Often, Little League volunteers have to grade and prep the fields for games when city staff aren’t available or the fields are torn up because of dogs.
Photo by Jessica Keller.
The ballfields at West Queen Anne Playfield, more commonly known as Big Howe, have been slated to be modernized for some time only to be delayed by the city, to the consternation of youth athletics organizations.
Through most of the year, Big Howe ballfields are used by youth soccer and boys and girls Queen Anne Little League teams, as well as adult recreational teams.
Former Queen Anne Community Council member and Queen Anne Little League parent Creighton Carroll said upgrading the ballfields at Big Howe has been on the city’s priority list for 25 years. The city was set to replace the grass fields with turf in 2020, but because of COVID and other factors, the project has been postponed until 2027. Frustrated by the city’s inaction and encountering delays, Queen Anne Little League organizers and parents are trying to push up that timeline as the need for modernized fields grows more pressing.
“The time for us to have this modernization complete is sooner than later,” Carroll said.
Field needs
One of the biggest problems Queen Anne Little League is encountering is the field space available in Queen Anne and specifically Big Howe playfields cannot accommodate the growing number of players interested in players, specifically among the girls teams, QALL President Tommy Kim said.
From 2018 to 2023, the number of softball players enrolled in Queen Anne Little League has almost tripled. In 2018, 58 players between the ages of 5-12 signed up. Those numbers have grown each year, reaching 96 players in 2021 and 155 at the start of this season. Five years ago, Kim said, QALL only fielded two softball teams; now it has a full slate.
“Basically, what is happening is that we have more teams than ever and the same number of fields.
While this is positive in itself, the Little League has had to adjust schedules to accommodate all the players.
“In order to give the softball teams the same amount of playing time as the baseball teams, we’ve basically had to pull back how many times a week they get to practice,” Kim said.
Before, the older players would practice four times a week, while the younger athletes would practice three times a week. Now, the older players practice for three, and the younger players practice twice a week.
“The problem is, there’s only so much space in Seattle, so there’s not many other fields we can go to,” Kim said.
Kim said one of the benefits of installing artificial turf is the lower, main ballfield at Big Howe will be converted from two to four baseball diamonds, which will allow more teams to practice in the week.
Field condition
Installing artificial turf would reduce another problem: rain delays and the damage and erosion rain can cause on the field. Kim said Seattle rain on the grass fields not only reduces the time available for QALL athletes to play and practice because of cancellations and delays in the spring — youth soccer clubs encounter the same issues in the fall — but field quality is also affected as waterlogged fields create messy and muddy conditions.
Compounding that is the damage that dogs have on the fields when owners bring their pets to the ballfields to run around, despite that being prohibited.
When the dogs run around, their claws fling up the dirt and grass, plus they leave holes from digging, leaving teams not able to play on the ballfields. As a result, QALL parents, coaches and players frequently have to grade the dirt and fix the problems before the games, when city staff cannot do so.
“I do sort of want to make it clear that we’re sympathetic to dog owners because they need someplace for their pets to go, but Big Howe is not the right place,” Kim said.
Not only would artificial turf eliminate field damage from dogs, players would not miss so much time practicing and playing because the turf dries faster than water-logged grass and dirt. Kim estimates that turf would be ready for play 30 to 45 minutes after a rainstorm, whereas rain on the grass fields can result in over a day’s delay. Volunteers and city staff wouldn’t have to spend so much time maintaining the fields, either.
Solutions
So far, QALL organizers entreaties to the city have yielded “a lot of encouraging words but nothing concrete,” Kim said.
He said Queen Anne Little League has already committed to fundraising so turf can be installed on the upper field at Big Howe, but nobody from the city has signed off on that idea. Currently, no funding has been budgeted to fix that field.
“It feels like one of the most frustrating parts is we are willing to fundraise and pay for this, but just let us know or give us permission to do this,” Kim said.
In mean time, Kim said parents and sports clubs and athletic supporters will keep pressuring the city to modernize the Big Howe ballfields and possibly convert Little Howe into a dog park.
Carroll would also like for the city to actually police the parks and ticket dog owners who allow their pets to run around on the fields.
It’s important for dogs to have places to run, he said, while pointing out that pet owners need to be responsible and offenders held accountable.
“Dogs aren’t people,” he said. “Children should be the priority.”
Carroll said nothing that has been proposed should be mired in politics, and he hopes the city agrees to pushing up the date to modernize the fields.
He also thinks finding a model that addresses the city’s athletic fields that also satisfies the different stakeholders would be ideal. Then that model could be applied to the rest of the city, he said.