By Michael Letendre

Last week, TBE took a look at the conditions of our baseball and softball fields in town.

From Bristol Central to Bristol Eastern, our athletes – unless they are competing from Muzzy Field – were playing on surfaces that needed some drastic improvements in terms of maintenance and the like.

Throw in Page Park, Riley Field and everywhere in-between, and the city of Bristol has a lot of work to do to catch up with the other towns around us.

The perception is a bad one though it sounds like more attention will be paid to our local public high schools in the near future.

But it’s tough when it seems like Bristol has all its eggs in one basket (Muzzy Field) and the rest of the fields don’t get enough care throughout the year.

But my focus this week is on the girls in town, meaning softball.

And in the understatement of the decade, our female athletes don’t have a venue that is even suitable for varsity play in Bristol.

And these girls deserve better. Much better.

I’m not happy for these athletes, competing their hearts out on inferior playing surfaces.

These girls represent Bristol with the names of our high schools on their uniforms several days a year.

How about giving them a facility to match that pride?

Not just ordinary players

I’ve been around a while watching these kids perform – some of them recently playing at the scholastic level for squads that were either in a championship tilt or just one game away.

And these young women deserve better.

I remember the Pride from the 2015 Bristol Girls Little league Softball City Series, watching the likes of Gwen and Pia Torreso help lead their squad to the championship.

There was this young athlete by the name of Janessa Gonzalez playing for the Robins, just getting her feet wet from the catcher’s position.

Then there was Lorelei Stancavage and Grace D’Amato competing on the Bristol Pride in 2016, competing their hearts out and winning the City Series championship.

Kayla St. Onge, Alex Shorette and pitching sensation Alex Sciarretto were playing for the Avalanche that year – eventually bring those lessons and teachings from the Little League level to the scholastic level.

In 2017, Emily Valentine was strutting her stuff for the Freedom and Mya Porrini dropped in hits for the Black Panthers.

Two seasons later, Leah Sklenka was pitching for the Velocity, as was Valentine, playing alongside Gracie LaMar – attempting to advance past Jayna Hatcher and the Black Panthers.

These aren’t just names from Little League days gone by.

Most of these athletes continued their softball careers at the scholastic level and were playing this past spring for the public high schools in Bristol.

But look at where those athletes had to call home.

Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern were built on swamps and pieces of land that have simply awful water drainage.

I don’t care how many curtain drains you install under the softball field over at Central because it’s all smoke and mirrors.

That’s why we need our friends from the Bristol Parks & Recreation Department to start taking care of those sites.

Watching former Bristol Eastern softball coach Scott Redman working on his field with a pickaxe and a pitchfork should only be seen in the movies (alongside Freddie Krueger or Michael Myers), not on King Street.

It’s time for an All-weather playing surface for softball in Bristol

Take a look at Plainville High School’s fields if you ever get a chance sometime this summer.

Look at what they enjoy: a beautiful grass baseball field and an all-weather surface for softball.

What an amazing set-up!

It’s time for Bristol to step up to give our girls the same kind of facility. 

Yes, it will take tax dollars and/or donations to get Bristol up to par.

There isn’t an overnight solution to get our softball fields up to snuff in our town but we need our leaders to start heading in that direction.

And when this issue is brought up, what happens?

Usually nothing because for decades now, several coaches and citizens have been asking the Park’s Department to start maintaining the fields at our high school.

Again, change is slowly taking place.

But it was still frustrating to watch in the past when someone like Darrell Darby, a man who absolutely loved coaching our girls in the city of Bristol over the years, had to once reposition the mound at Casey Field because it was in the wrong spot for a City Series bout.

Why was that his job?

I wanted Mr. Darby getting ready to coach instead of worrying about subpar field conditions.

Speaking of Casey Field, why can’t that venue become our one softball facility in town in terms of an all-weather facility?

Yes, it lacks a scoreboard and maybe needs more seating, but we need just one field for our outstanding female athletes to play on in Bristol.

And the two public schools can alternate games on that turf and the city can rent it out when not in use by our teams.

Casey Field is located on busy Route 229 and not far from I-84.

The idea is more than a viable one.

Back to Plainville

Please, take a look at what our friends in Plainville enjoy for softball:

Why can’t we have that here in Bristol?

We should give these girls something to be proud of, regardless of the weather because when it rains on these dirt fields in town, it doesn’t take much to see a game postponed or cancelled.

And it was upsetting – to parents and players alike – when that Cheshire/Bristol Central softball game took three days to complete during the Class LL Tournament back in June.

And Cheshire was bussed down twice just to have to turn around and come back to Bristol another day.

Parents weren’t happy and they had every right not to be.

Hey, I get the expenses the city has to deal with along with unions and overtime considerations but that happens in every town.

And there always seems to be a political component that gums up the works.

But I care about these players Bristol and not the politics behind those decisions that the girls must comply with.

Bottom Line

Let me better explain this to the people in Bristol who could make a difference that haven’t been able to do so to date.

It appears, on the surface, that some of the decision makers in Bristol don’t care enough about girl’s sports in town.

That might be an incorrect notion but the reality becomes clear when looking at our fields and facilities throughout the Mum City.

Change is in the air in our country, whether for good or not, and at a local level, let’s give our female athletes in town a fair shake.

We are not on the same level to even some of the smaller towns in Connecticut (again, see Plainville).

Frankly, there’s a big difference when taking in the annual Bristol Central/Bristol Eastern baseball games at Muzzy Field compared to a BC/BE softball contest from either one of the high schools in the city.

Please, someone needs to close the gap between the sports because those girls deserve it more than anyone else in Bristol.

Time’s up…let’s go!