The Syracuse Challenger Baseball League finished up its season in a big way — with its 14 teams playing their seven final match-ups of the season at the Syracuse Chiefs’ NBT Bank Stadium, being cheered by family, friends and Chiefs mascots Scooch and Pops.
And next year the league hopes to have its own stadium in which to play the entire season.
The Challenger Baseball league offers a place for children of all ages with various special needs, physical handicaps and developmental delays to get the chance to play baseball. Founded locally in 1984 and now with nearly 260 members, Syracuse Challenger Baseball is the largest of an estimated 900 single-district Challenger Little Leagues in the world.
“It’s [Challenger League] a place where my son can go and if he cries or has a fit or melts down, they know that it’s typical for these guys,” said Kathi Josyln, coach of the green team and mother of 13-year-old Challenger player Ian. “The teams are made up of a group of kids where he actually fits in and belongs — it’s just a great organization.”
The Syracuse Challenger League is currently in the process of building a “Field of Dreams” complex that will be fully handicap accessible and, when finished, will include 10 professional-quality little league diamonds; two championship-level, multi-athletic turf fields for soccer, lacrosse and football; courts for basketball, volleyball and tennis; a playground; and many other features.
According to Dom Cambareri, program director of the Challenger League, many of the kids who participate in the Challenger League do not get the chance to play on other local Little League teams.
“The Challenger Field of Dreams complex would provide the special needs community a facility in which to recreate and play sports,” said Cambareri. “For the physical and emotional health and well being of special needs kids, that type of activity is paramount to their existence, especially when they become adults.”
The new complex will be built on a 24.5 acre plot of land donated by Carrier Corporation in 2010 and is expected to cost about $12.5 million. About $6.5 million has already been raised through donations, said Cambareri, and the project received a $4 million anticipated bond note through the town of DeWitt in February.
Cambareri said the Friends of DeWitt Parks and Recreation, the main fundraising leg of the project, has reached out to community foundations, private and corporate entities, the Governor’s Office, the Onondaga County Legislature and the New York State Legislature for additional grants to help fund the project.
Phase one of the project’s construction has already started, so the Challenger League should be able to play their games there by next season, and Cambareri said they hope to have the entire complex finished by fall of 2017.
Local youth sports leagues and teams, including Little League Baseball, soccer, lacrosse and Pop Warner football, would utilize the Carrier Park Challenger Field of Dreams. The complex is also expected to draw youth tournaments from outside the region, bringing visitors to the area who would use the nearby hotels, restaurants and retail shops, said Cambareri.
Continued fundraising for the Field of Dreams complex will occur on Nov. 21 with the “Baseball Bash Vol. 2 Event” at the OnCenter. Last year, the event hosted Syracuse Basketball Coach Jim Boeheim and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Rich “Goose” Gossage, but Cambareri promises the upcoming event to be just as exciting.
“It’s going to be bigger and better than ever,” Cambareri said.
To find out more about the Challenger Field of Dreams project, visit challengerfieldofdreams.org.
Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for Eagle Newspapers. She can be reached at [email protected].
