Why did Oregon lawmakers give $3M to a private university for sports fields in Salem?

Most of the sports projects included in $40 million the 2024 Legislature approved are well known, like the $15 million toward a stadium for the Hillsboro Hops and the $7.6 million for a stadium for the Eugene Emeralds.

The one not many people knew much about was $3 million “to support youth baseball and softball” that will go to Willamette University to add artificial turf and lights for the baseball field at Spec Keene Stadium inside Bush’s Pasture Park.

In the funding from the Legislature, the money is specifically allocated to Willamette for the turf and lights at Spec Keene Stadium. The college team and a college-age summer baseball program will be its primary beneficiaries, though high school teams will get to use the fields for free.

The Salem Baseball Club, an expansion team in a college baseball wood bat league that was announced in January, advocated for the project. The club plans to start play in the West Coast League with all 27 regular season home games in 2025 at John Lewis Field at Spec Keene Stadium.

“I think we have the market that is asking for something to do in the summer,” said Luke Emanuel, the club's owner/manager.

“But we have to do it right. We can’t go in and just providing adequate or just an OK product. We have to do it right," Emanuel told the Statesman Journal. "And so it’s going to require some up-front costs. I think the turf does amazing things for us in terms of presenting a new space."

Salem neighborhood opposition to baseball stadium improvements

The allocation has sparked an outcry from neighbors of Bush's Pasture Park, who say the games will destroy the historic and natural feel of the park and neighborhood. Parts of both are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Neighbors worry about bright lights shining into the night, noise and parking for the estimated 1,500 people attending each game.

More than that, they say the move is contrary to a detailed management plan for the park that the city completed in 2021, contrary to tribal ancestral interests and will displace traditional uses of the park like walking, running and picnicking.

“It’s a private enterprise that’s going to bring in a baseball league and play 30 games from the middle of June, through July, and into the first part of August, which is the prime time people want to go to the park,” said Dan Simmons, who has lived near the park for half a century.

Emanuel said he has been attending neighborhood association meetings since 2022 and has had significant support for the team from those who live around the park.

Some neighbors of the park plan to raise their objections Thursday at a meeting of the city’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and hope to convince the Salem City Council to not grant any needed approvals for construction.

The 90.5 acre city park is home to Salem’s municipal rose garden, mixed flower beds, oak woodlands, walking trails and picnic areas. The historic Bush House Museum and Conservatory and the Salem Art Association’s Bush Barn Art Center also are in the park.

“The city calls the park ‘the crown jewel of Salem.’ I believe it is. It’s a spectacular place,” Simmons said.

Salem-Keizer Public Schools officials testified in support of the legislative allocation. So did the Family YMCA of Marion & Polk Counties, the Boys & Girls Club of Salem, Special Olympics Oregon, Travel Salem, Marion County Commissioners and the city of Salem.

Who is Salem Baseball Club owner Luke Emanuel?

Emanuel grew up in Salem and graduated from McKay High School, where he played baseball. He graduated from St. John’s in 2004 and got his law degree from the University of Oregon in 2008. He spent eight years as director of baseball operations for Oregon.

He worked as president of baseball operations for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes from 2016 to 2017. He said that much of his job was to increase revenue.

“To do that, you need to do a lot of things,” Emanuel said. “You need to get your corporate partners and you need to increase attendance. And that was the mission.

“And to this day, I tell everybody that was my most favorite employment and also the most challenging," he said "And good or bad, I learned from it and I still look back fondly at work we did and we accomplished, which was pretty neat.”

Emanuel took the job as director of football operations at UCLA under head coach Chip Kelly in 2018, but came back to Salem a year later.

He said he’s been flipping houses since then.

Part of his job at Oregon involved finding wood bat league teams for the school’s players, and he’s been interested in a team since. He started working on the Salem Baseball Club project in 2022.

What is a wood bat team?

Collegiate summer baseball leagues, commonly referred to as wood bat leagues, are summer baseball leagues for current college players who have played at least one year of college ball and have a year of eligibility remaining.

The players don’t get paid and join the teams after completing their regular college seasons.

Among the top collegiate summer leagues are the Alaska Baseball League and the Cape Cod Baseball League, which dates to 1885.

The West Coast League was founded in 2005. It currently has 16 teams in Oregon, Washington and Canada.

Its other teams in Oregon are the Corvallis Knights — which have won 10 league championships, including the past seven straight — the Bend Elks (coached by former Sprague player Joey Wong), the Portland Pickles and the Springfield Drifters.

Emanuel said he got the idea to start the Salem Baseball Club after his friend, Ike Olsson, started the Drifters after getting a turf baseball field at Hamilton Elementary School in Springfield.

The West Coast League season starts in late May or early June and runs through the championship game in mid-August. The teams currently play 54 regular season games with half of those home games.

In January, the league announced the Salem Baseball Club would receive the 17th franchise. Emanuel said he purchased the franchise in 2023, but the league held off announcing it for a year.

“They were very welcoming for us to come," he said. "We’re going to be the third largest market in the league. It’s going to go Portland, Edmonton, then us.”

Spec Keene Stadium located inside Bush's Pasture Park

Willamette University built Spec Keene Stadium in 1989 at John Lewis Field, which dates back to the 1940s. It has 1,500 seats and besides being the home for Willamette, has been the home of American Legion baseball teams in past summers.

It is located next to McCulloch Stadium, where Willamette’s football and track and field teams have competed since 1950, and is surrounded by Bush’s Pasture Park.

Artificial turf was added on the pitching mound, around home plate, along the first and third baselines and in the bullpen areas in 2019. And the grass on the field still is damp during any heavy rain, due to the features of the surround park.

Willamette has a long-term lease on the property on Tokyo University Ballfield, a softball field built in 1999 on property owned by Tokyo International University of America. It borders railroad tracks and 14th Street.

The organizers estimate turfing the two Willamette University fields and adding lights will cost $6 million.

In February, they told state lawmakers they had raised $2.3 million from a series of grants, private donations and Willamette University funds.

“A little bit more than that,” Emanuel said. “We’ve done well.”

In January, the city of Salem entered into a memorandum of understanding, which runs through Oct. 31, with the Salem Baseball Club.

That MOU says the team and city will “participate in good faith negotiations for the next 10 months on the renovation of the Stadium and softball stadium.”

It also says that the team will not seek city funds for improvements.

Deputy City Manager Scott Archer told city councilors that the city’s contribution will be in staff time.

“The renovation and use of the stadium will require a little bit of expansion into Bush’s Pasture Park,” he told the City Council.

The team also plans to make improvement to accessibility at John Lewis Stadium.

No Salem-Keizer baseball, softball fields are turf

While the football fields at the six high schools in the Salem-Keizer Public Schools district are covered with artificial turf, there are no turf baseball or softball fields.

Every spring, dozens of games are postponed or moved elsewhere because their home grass fields are unplayable due to being too wet.

Until this year, the nearest turf baseball fields to Salem were at Stayton and Scio high schools, as well as Western Oregon University in Monmouth. The nearest turf softball fields are at Scio and Western Oregon. Those are only turf infields.

Volcanoes Stadium completed a $2.2 million project this year with private funds covering the baseball field in turf. The schedule for Volcanoes Stadium is packed with college and high school games this spring. The stadium has been the host to the OSAA state baseball championships since 1998, is the home for Corban College’s baseball team and has hosted high school baseball teams through the years, including McNary and Blanchet Catholic.

In its proposal to Legislature for state funding, the organizers said Willamette University would make the turf fields available to local high school teams for games in the spring when theirs are unplayable.

The school district won’t have to pay for that use, as part of the agreement for receiving state funds for the fields.

Willamette athletic director Rob Passage said the Salem-Keizer school district was an original partner in the project but backed out due to budget cuts. He said that the district will get free access to the fields after the state funding came through.

Construction on installing turf is expected to commence in the fall.

Tracy Loew contributed to this story.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon gave $3M to Willamette University for sports fields