Royal Giants baseball field, Meier Field, to be completed in next month
By FRED KRONER
Two friends were talking, as friends will do, as the baseball game they had been watching in person came to a conclusion.
They had shared interests, having gone to high school together at St. Joseph-Ogden and, subsequently, becoming teammates on the Royal Giants entry in the Eastern Illinois Baseball League.
As friends are wont to do, they rehashed the good old days when they played for the Giants.
There were on-field successes, to be sure, but the topic of the day on this afternoon in 2015 wasn’t championships.
They were remembering how nice it was to have a field of their own; a home field.
The friends played for the Giants in the 1980s, when the team’s ball park was at a quaint location along a country road south and east of Royal.
A farmer, Stan Harper, had donated a parcel of land that was turned into Harper Park.
Ground was broken in the summer of 1968 and for two decades, Royal players – including future major-leaguer Darrin Fletcher – had their Sunday afternoon games at the site.
A lot had changed since the friends were teammates. Royal now shared a home field with rival Gifford-Flatville and the ball park was located in Gifford.
Les Hoveln was one of the men involved in the 2015 conversation.
“We said, ‘let’s build a field,’” Hoveln recalled, “and that’s where it started.”
The friends’ playing careers had ended years earlier, but they still enjoyed watching the team play. And, they agreed that Royal shouldn’t have to share a ball diamond.
From 2006 through 2019, the Royal home games were played in Gifford.
As these words are read, near the end of July in 2021, the assumption is that the idea for a field was discussed and then forgotten or else discarded.
For the past two summers, the Giants have played all of their games on the road. Ironically, when the E.I. regular season ended on Sunday (July 24), Royal played at Gifford.
The truth, Hoveln discovered, is that patience is a virtue.
“We were trying to find land,” he said. “I thought that sounded fairly easy, but it wasn’t.”
They looked in and around Royal, but to no avail. What they could find didn’t come with suitable terms.
A banker at the Philo Exchange Bank, Hoveln was tipped off about a possibility along Route 150, just west of St. Joseph.
“A customer of mine told me about a family that may want to sell a parcel of land,” Hoveln recalled.
The sale was made after the 2018 crops were harvested and Hoveln’s friend – who wants to remain a silent partner – became the owner of approximately 36 acres.
About six acres were set aside for the ball field, parking, concession area and restrooms. The remaining 30 acres remains farmland.
“Then we started putting the plan together,” Hoveln said.
Forming the plan and executing the plan were two different details.
“There were hoops to jump through,” Hoveln said, “from zoning to IEPA to the Rail-to-Trail folks. There were all different levels of policies and procedures.”
It wasn’t until January of 2021 that contracts were signed with Byrne and Jones, from St. Louis, to handle the construction.
“The end of May was the original target date (for completion),” said Hoveln, who is the liaison between the donor and the construction company. “It didn’t happen because of delays.
“We knew everything would have to be perfect and that date kept getting moved and moved.”
The sod installation is expected to take place this week and should be finished by the end of July.
“Once we fire up the irrigation, it will take about three weeks for the sod to get seeded and ready to play on,” Hoveln said. “In the next 30 days, it will be all done.”
With the Eastern Illinois Baseball League regular season ending on Sunday (July 24) and the postseason scheduled for the upcoming two weekends, the Royal Giants will need to wait until 2022 to play on the field.
“This will be fantastic for us and the league,” Hoveln said.
Ironically, Royal’s E.I. team won’t be the first one to use the field. Starting next spring, St. Joseph-Ogden High School will practice and play its home games at a site which will be known as Meier Field.
“At the point the land became available, it made sense to offer it to the high school,” Hoveln said.
The anonymous donor is covering all expenses, not only of the land purchase, but also of the field construction, irrigation, sod, dugouts, concession stand, press box, restrooms, bleachers, fencing, parking and a scoreboard that will feature a 6-foot by 10-foot video board.
The donor’s commitment will end once the work is finished and the field is playable.
“The plan is for the high school and the Giants to share the general upkeep and maintenance,” said Hoveln, who is also a school board member in St. Joseph.
The layout at Meier Field is similar to what existed for two decades at Harper Park. Pitchers will throw to the southwest.
Paxton is the only current E.I. site where pitchers throw to the southwest. At Buckley, pitchers throw to the northwest and at Gifford, pitchers throw to the northeast.
Hoveln said several factors were considered.
“We thought about the sun, prevailing winds and we talked to the builders,” he said. “With Route 150, we felt it needed to face that way.”
The dimensions of the grass Meier Field site are 330 feet down the lines in left field and right field, 385 to straight-away center field, but 395 to the power alleys.
The layout is similar to major league facilities where the Colorado Rockies and Houston Astros play.
Hoveln estimates that any slugger with designs of hammering a home run to reach Route 150 would have a minimum of 440 feet to reach that destination.
Parking will be available at Meier Field for at least 200 vehicles and – like at other E.I. sites – spectators can back their vehicles directly up to the fence, if they choose.
There will be 12 rows of bleachers, which will be situated primarily behind home plate.
Bryne and Jones sub-contracted out the irrigation and sod work.
“The crew that is laying our sod is the same crew that laid sod at Busch Stadium, at the Kansas City Royals park, the Kansas City Chiefs park and for the Baltimore Ravens,” Hoveln said.
Bryne and Jones are also responsible for the new athletic field complex in west Rantoul as well as the renovated fields at Unity High School, in Tolono, and at Westville High School, south of Danville.
Laying the sod, touching up the warning track and installing the scoreboard are among the final details to be completed at Meier Field.
There are no field lights at the ball park, but Hoveln said the fuse box which has been installed could handle that addition at some future time.
If that happens, Hoveln added, “that dime would be on the school.”
To reach the field, turn south off of Route 150 at Police Park Road, which is across the highway from the Pioneer seed plant.
When the 2022 E.I. season begins next year in late May, it will mark the second time in the league’s now 87-year history that Royal has played home games in St. Joseph. The Giants also called the village home in the early 1960s.
