Dedication of the Athletes in Action Baseball Field Slated for Aug. 1

Construction of the Nearly-Completed Baseball Stadium to be Ready for Dedication

As you pull into the parking lot surrounded by rolling hills, you wonder if you have arrived at the correct destination. Above the   gentle slopes is a distinguished scoreboard and bright lights shining down on what you believe to be just an ordinary baseball field. Nothing has prepared you for the jaw-dropping experience as you make your way to the top of the mount, slowly revealing the third base dugout, batting cages, the backstop and finally the field of dreams.

“You just see face after face light up. They have never seen anything like it,” says Matt*, director of the baseball field at Athletes in Action (AIA) Sports Complex in Xenia, Ohio. “When we set out to build the field, our goal was that there would not be a college athlete in the country that wouldn’t come out and say, ‘Wow, this is really, really impressive.’”

The Xenia Scouts, an AIA baseball team that competes in the Major League Baseball sponsored Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League, have played their home games for three years on the stunning all-weather, synthetic turf field, patiently waited for the vision of stadium seating to become a reality.

“The one thing that we really wanted to do for the last three years is to set up a cool, small-town, minor-league baseball atmosphere in the city of Xenia,” Matt says. “We wanted to have a facility that the city could take pride in. It would be a place where the community could connect with a hometown team.”

Only a few weeks from completion, AIA will provide a 550 seat grandstand with 112 stadium chairs, and 438 bench-back seats just in time for the dedication of the field during the Xenia Scouts final home doubleheader on Saturday, Aug. 1 beginning at 4:00 pm.

“We have had a great facility for people to come, play and train, but we haven’t had a place where fans, family and friends could come and feel close to the action on the field,” Matt says. “We’re  finally at the point with the construction of the stadium, where we have the opportunity to make it an experience for everybody and they would not just be a part of a baseball thing but be a part of AIA baseball’s outreach to and through college baseball players during the summer.”

The dedication of AIA’s baseball field will honor a family who was vital in making the construction of the stadium possible.

In July of 2008, Ryan and Katrina Smith of Erie, Pennsylvania, friends of the AIA baseball ministry, gave birth to their first babies—twins Gianna and Grady. Born over three months premature, Grady lived only 52 hours. In dealing with such a devastating loss, the Smith’s were searching for a way to direct the love and support they had received toward a cause that would memorialize the life of their son.

“My son lived for 52 hours but I want his 52 hours on earth to have some sort of eternal impact,” Ryan says, according to Matt.

Knowing that AIA needed another $150,000 in funding to build the stadium, the Smith’s asked those interested in furthering God’s legacy through their son, to contribute to AIA for the construction of the venue around the field that would bear the name “Grady’s Field.”

All are invited to attend the dedication ceremony which will take place on August 1^st between the two Xenia Scouts baseball games at approximately 7 p.m. and will include community entertainment. Family and friends of the Smith’s will be present.

The stadium will be put to good use as teams as far away as Missouri, Illinois, New York and Tennessee come to take advantage of the great facilities. In the past two springs, over 50 different colleges including University of Dayton and Wright State University, and over 70 different high schools have played on the field. In 2009 alone, 180 baseball games will have been played at Grady’s Field.

“Xenia, Ohio, is actually a destination for major college baseball so this gives us, as AIA, a great opportunity to say, ‘Come on out, look what we have, come be a part of it,’” Matt says. “We knew that it would be a great venue to impact people in the community and it would be a great way for our players to feel like they really belonged to something, something that is unique and family-oriented.”

Located at 1197 S. Detroit Street, Xenia, OH, Grady’s Field is just a part of the AIA Sports Complex and Retreat Center which also includes two synthetic turf soccer fields and softball fields, a synthetic turf football field, track, challenge course with high and low elements, retreat center, four residence halls and a conference center all on one campus in Xenia, Ohio.

For more information on the story of Grady’s Field please visit http://www.gradysdecision.com/.

For more information on AIA baseball please visit, http://www.aiabaseball.org/.

For more information on the AIA Sports Complex and Retreat Center please visit, www.athletesinaction.org/sportscomplex.

By Elaine Piniat, AIA summer intern in the communications department.

Elaine.piniat@athletesinaction.org

*AIA’s policy is to use only first names of staff members in online stories.

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