The Santa Barbara Foresters have a new downtown home.
The summer baseball team of top collegiate players from all over the country will play its home games at Pershing Park, Foresters executive director and team manager Bill Pintard announced Friday.
The Foresters will play their first home game at Pershing on Friday, June 9. The team previously played its home games at UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. The university notified the team last year that their 26-year stadium relationship was ending.
“The relocation of the Santa Barbara Foresters from UCSB to Pershing Park is the result of an extraordinary amount of collaboration and cooperation by the City of Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation Department, officials at Santa Barbara City College and the Santa Barbara Adult Softball League,” Pintard said. “We are also grateful for the contributions of Earl Armstrong and Tom Ochsner, among others, who made valuable contributions to the relocation effort.”
The Foresters are coming off winning their sixth National Baseball Congress World Series championship. They are members of the California Collegiate League, a summer baseball program for college-level ballplayers. The league plays a 39-game summer season. The Foresters have won the league 19 times, and several of their players have reached the Major Leagues.
“The Foresters are excited to bring our top collegiate level team to the downtown area and establish a new Santa Barbara summer tradition on this storied baseball diamond,” said Pintard.
The Foresters usually play their games Tuesday through Sunday. The Tuesday through Saturday games will start at 6 p.m. and the Sunday games at 2 p.m.
This year’s schedule will include a Fourth-of-July game against the Conejo Oaks at 4:30 p.m.
Pershing Park is home to the Santa Barbara City College baseball team, SBCC woman’s softball team, and the Santa Barbara Adult Softball program, Major League Softball. Representatives from these organizations worked with the Foresters to accommodate the schedules of all the respective teams currently using the field.