Overview:
UCSB is trying to raise $6 million to resurface Uyesaka Stadium with artificial turf while also adding a video board, restrooms and a park-like concession terrace
A gauntlet of storms drenched UC Santa Barbara’s campus so completely this winter that it gave Caesar Uyesaka Stadium a retro look that predated even its 1994 conception.
Coach Andrew Checketts likened the unruly outfield grass to “big hair, like the 1980s” when he started preseason workouts in January.
“We weren’t able to get a mower on it for eight or nine weeks,” he continued. “We were afraid it would sink in if we did.”
But the Gauchos (17-4, 5-1 Big West Conference) were able to rise to No. 10 in this week’s Collegiate Baseball News rankings despite having much of their preseason practice and six home games washed away by an “atmospheric river.”
It got so bad that Checketts wondered if the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would banish baseball altogether at Uyesaka Stadium by declaring it protected wetlands.
“We’ve had a few geese and ducks in the outfield,” he deadpanned. “We haven’t quite stocked it with trout yet.”
Checketts adjusted to Mother Nature’s curveballs, however, with the dexterous aplomb of a Ty Cobb.
His first move was to hold workouts atop the artificial turf at the nearby Student Rec Center fields.
“We couldn’t play full baseball or hit balls, but we could play catch and take some ground balls,” Checketts said.
He also moved UCSB’s series against Oregon to the Pacific Northwest, which had somehow traded climates with Southern California.
He replaced the two rainouts against Seton Hall, meanwhile, by arranging a nonleague doubleheader at Cal Poly.
The weather hadn’t been much drier in San Luis Obispo, just 100 miles up Highway 101. And Cal Poly’s Baggett Stadium is only seven years younger than UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
But there are light years of difference between the two facilities.
Fixer-Upper Stadium
The Gauchos began to bridge that gap in 2020 by erecting some actual lights, at a cost of $1.6 million.
Checketts has since shifted his fundraising efforts toward a $3 million project to transform this misappropriated reservoir into more of a playing field.
“My amateur explanation is that we’ve got a high water table, based on our location, and a high clay content,” he said. “Combine that with 10 years worth of rain in three months, and we’re pretty saturated.”
He figures a toupee would be the best replacement for Caesar Uyesaka’s problematic scalp.
“It would help us in ways even beyond the games,” Checketts said. “You’re talking about all the other stuff behind the scenes: practice opportunities and development, camps and clinics.
“We also have to fundraise for our groundskeeper — Kevin Cannon does that for us — and (artificial) turf would alleviate a lot of the pressure that goes along with that.”
UCSB has already raised $2.4 million for the job. Checketts, however, said he “needs a hero in a hurry” to pay for the rest of it.
“We’ve been moving forward and doing a lot of the prep work,” he said. “We’ve done the soil samples. We’ve got really accurate estimates. We’ve got all the project managers involved.
“But because of the window for construction and the leadup to that, we’ve got to start making final decisions and final plans. We want to install it during the middle of summer so we won’t be disrupting too much of our fall schedule.
“If we can’t get it done then, it’s hard to imagine we’d be able to do that in November or December. We’d have to push it back again and look at 2025 before it gets done.”
No Restrooms for the Weary
New turf is just part of a $6 million master plan to upgrade Uyesaka Stadium. The package includes a new video board, restrooms and an “All-American Way” to honor past Gaucho stars.
“We have a project manager and architectural drawings,” Checketts said. “It’d be a joint use with softball, paved down to their stands. It would have a park-like feel with concessions beyond their left field.
“We’d take down that fence and move concessions up against our trailer and open that thing up with a terrace where people could watch both games, with a bathroom facility for both sports.
“It would check a lot of boxes for both programs.”
The use of porta potties for baseball and softball is a public embarrassment that UCSB has neglected to flush since taking over the former Marine Corps air training base as its campus after World War II.
Although the Athletics Department has no control over facilities management, it’s required to manage any deficiencies at its venues. And so far, there’s been no relief for the baseball fan’s most urgent bodily issue.
“We had a donor spend $50,000 on the planning of the bathrooms, but it is a hard project to fund raise for,” Checketts said. “No donor really wants their name above a urinal.”
The Gauchos were one of the top-16 seeds for the 2015 NCAA Baseball Tournament but were forced to host their regional 175 miles away at a minor league ballpark in Lake Elsinore.
It wound up being more of a home venue for the fans of San Diego State and USC.
Checketts won’t go down that 175-mile road again.
Hosting a Regional
“I think we’re at a point now that if the team earned it, we’d just try to piece it together here,” he said. “It might be a little embarrassing, with bathrooms being the first issue.
“We’d also have to figure out the groundskeeping situation with multiple games each day, and how to facilitate the media.”
UCSB skimped on a press box, reducing it to the size of a broom closet, when it cut corners to complete Uyesaka Stadium in 1994.
“We’re still short on the infrastructure,” Checketts conceded. “Hopefully, we get to the point where we’d need to have the conversation of figuring out how to piece it all together for multiple games a day … the bathrooms, the grounds crew.
“It would put a lot of pressure on our baseball staff and our ICA administration.
“But I think we’d all like to have a regional here. It might be good for us to expose where we’re short if we get a chance to go through with it.”
His Gauchos showed their adaptability when they won all five of the home games that were moved to Eugene, Oregon, and San Luis Obispo.
“Those aren’t easy places to play,” Checketts said. “Oregon was 26 degrees with a windchill at the beginning of the Friday game, and I didn’t hear any whining and crying.”
Maybe they were too tired to complain. Flight delays kept the Gauchos from arriving in Eugene until 2:30 a.m. on game day.
“We were back on the field at 10 a.m.,” Checketts pointed out. “I told them, ‘Hey, there are a lot of reasons why we can cry and feel sorry for ourselves, but be grateful that our administration supported us in getting up here. It cost a lot of money to do that.
“‘We could be sitting at home, fishing in our outfield right now.’”
Checketts will be casting his line for a donor in the meantime. All the big fish, so far, have gotten away.
Extra Innings
To make a donation toward UCSB’s baseball renovations or for more information, email Matt English, senior associate athletic director for development, at matt.english@ucsb.edu.