Tipton asks for community dollars to restore baseball diamonds, tradition
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Tipton has a proud baseball tradition, with little league teams playing on fields just south of Tipton City Park as early as the 1930s.
But those fields weren’t been well maintained in recent years, and the baseball complex was demolished in 2023, causing most leagues in Tipton to travel down the road to Atlanta in order to play ball.
That led city leaders, chiefly Mayor Kegan Schmicker, to embark on a plan to rebuild the baseball fields. The city has already taken out a $2 million loan for the project and now is asking for the community’s help to raise another $1 million to cover the rest of the cost.
Schmicker told Inside INdiana Business rebuilding the fields will help the community’s sports scene, but it’s also about restoring civic pride.
“When baseball facilities weren’t in Tipton … it just created a little bit of a disassociation that we’re no longer in this city in which our kids go to school and we live,” Schmicker said. “I think that’s what the excitement’s about and why we wanted to launch the capital campaign. It offered that opportunity that facilities would be back here in the city of Tipton and community, from a family perspective, can get back together and commune together to watch their children and grandchildren play baseball.”
Plans call for a handful of baseball fields—one 350-foot diamond for older players, one 200-foot diamond and then one or two dedicated to Pee Wee leagues. In addition, the complex will feature new concession areas, restrooms and more seating.
The city says its already 20% towards the $1 million goal and Schmicker said construction could start in the next 45 days. The city has already selected BW Construction as its main builder.
The new baseball diamonds will be just a 25-minute drive north of the Grand Park Sports Complex in Westfield, and Schmicker said he’s aware of the booming youth sports marketplace that’s attracted visitors to Indiana in recent years. The Tipton baseball complex could host some tournaments that come to Westfield if extra room is needed, but Schmicker said the goal is for the new fields to be used primarily by leagues in the immediate area.
“We’re building in a way that we could host the tournaments, but we wanted to be very intentional about the focus on making sure our recreational leagues within the city of Tipton and the youth of Tipton had a space to play that didn’t cost them dollars to participate,” Schmicker said.
The mayor added that Tipton isn’t a stranger to community fundraising. In 2017, the city raised more than $20,000 and received a matching $20,000 grant from the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority’s CreatINg Places program to beautify an alley in the city’s downtown.
The Alley fundraising project helped bring the community together, Schmicker said. And it gave him the idea to turn to the community for support once more in rebuilding the baseball complex.
“The excitement that that helped generate at that time was palpable. I mean, you could cut it with a knife in this community,” he said. “So it’s really my hope that this capital campaign has a similar effect. It’s certainly a much larger scale.”
Anyone looking to donate to the project can visit LoveTipton.com. The city has set up individual and company naming rights opportunities as part of the funraising effort.