Enough delay, get Sid ready for play

Baseball season is coming to a close and Sid Augarten Field remains a rutted, flooded mess.

In 2007, then Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Councilman Oliver Koppell each allocated funds to fix the field on Mosholu Avenue — home of the North Riverdale Baseball League. Since then, each office has repeatedly upped its contributions — at around $1.8 million — to meet constantly rising cost estimates.

In 2008, The Press reported that John Ward, the President of the North Riverdale Baseball League, had high hopes that the field’s drainage problems would be corrected, its ball field rebuilt and new benches, fencing, backstops, bleachers and drinking fountains would be installed no later than, well, yesterday.
“Hopefully, for the 2010 season we will have a safe, beautiful new ball field for the almost 500 children who play at Sid Field each week,” he said in a statement that was released through the borough president’s office more than two years ago.

That still hasn’t happened. This year, local children still play on a field so uneven that state Little League officials couldn’t allow tournament games there.
In August, Leonore Augarten Siegel, widow of Sidney Augarten — the former coach, commissioner and president of the North Riverdale Baseball League after whom the field is named — wrote a letter published in The Press. She thanked Mr. Koppell and Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte for their support, but lamented that, “ … for some reason the Sid Augarten Field renovations are not being done.”

The Oct. 5 deadline for bidders to apply for work on the field has now passed and Mr. Koppell’s office said Parks will start work in December or January. It won’t be ready for next spring, when the Parks Department will have to find temporary accommodations for the NRBL children who use the field.

Hopes that the field would be ready for play have now been dashed so many times even close observers can’t keep track. Riverdale little leaguers and their supporters must not be let down again.

It has been years since the plan to fix up the NRBL’s little piece of park was first floated. Now the community deserves a guarantee that it will be ready for pitchers and catchers in 2012.

In the words of Ms. Augarten Siegel: “The children here need and want a safe place of their own. The Sid Augarten Field is their place. What is the problem?”