Baseball facility to help improve athletic setting at UAPB

By Jeremy Muck/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

The city of Pine Bluff has been known as a baseball town for years.

With a new baseball complex, the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff will help make the city’s baseball tradition more impressive.

Pine Bluff native and current Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim outfielder Torii Hunter recently donated $500,000 to UAPB toward the construction of a $9.5 million baseball complex, to be built north of Golden Lion Stadium off of Highway 79.

UAPB currently plays its home baseball games at Regional Park and Taylor Field in Pine Bluff. However, the two facilities are not Division I caliber. UAPB baseball coach Michael Bumpers and Perkins met last summer and Bumpers was enthused about the possibility of a new facility.

Perkins first saw the facilities last summer when he came to Pine Bluff and knew that there was work to be done for the baseball program.

“I drove by Regional Park, saw the park, and I said that this would be a great place to practice or things of that nature,” Perkins said. “But we need to be on campus in a quality facility. You look at Golden Lion Stadium, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a baseball and softball complex on the same level, period.

“Taylor Field, I thought, was great, sufficient. It’s definitely a hitter’s ballpark. But I thought that would be great if we host a SWAC Tournament where you would have a “B” facility. But I didn’t think it should be a home for UAPB baseball. That’s very good that we’re able to use it. It’s a very nostalgic feeling. It’s a throwback type of ballpark. It’s Pine Bluff High’s home field. It is what it is. But we need to be on campus. All of our sports need to play, practice, and train on campus.”

The current baseball facilities for UAPB are among the worst, if not the worst, in the SWAC. The moment Perkins stepped foot on the UAPB campus, he has strived to help improve the athletic department. For that to happen, the facilities have to improve, including baseball.

Perkins has seen the other facilities in the SWAC and knows that UAPB has to keep up by building their own baseball complex. Golden Lion Stadium opened in 2000 for the football team and Old Pumphrey Stadium is currently being refurbished for the soccer program.

“It’s a recruiting tool, but it’s also a piece of the university,” Perkins said. “If you look around our academic setting, it makes no sense for our athletic setting not to be at par. Right now, Golden Lion Stadium and this fieldhouse sets us apart from any other school in this conference, so we need to be consistent.

“But right now, with the help of Torii, our next immediate goal is to do this baseball and softball campaign. He’s given us the funds to get started, but we have some things we have to do on our side too. It’s not just a matter of Torii giving us $500,000 and we do what we want to do. We have to raise funds too. There’s also some matching involved in that. He also has some stipulations he’s put in place. We have a verbal commitment from him and the school attorneys and his attorney’s agent will mold it. He would like to see some unique stipulations involved in it, too.”

Perkins said that Hunter told him he wants the baseball complex to be as nice as Golden Lion Stadium. Hunter told Perkins that he isn’t concerned with how many seats are in the stadium.

Perkins said this week that the fundraising project will officially kick off in late April. Sissy’s Log Cabin President Bill Jones, who is the cousin of UAPB assistant baseball coach Mike Wilson, will spearhead the project on the business side of things. There is still $8.5 million left to be raised after Hunter’s $500,000 donation.

The new baseball complex, when finished, should compare favorably to other Division I baseball facilities in the state of Arkansas, including Baum Stadium at the University of Arkansas.

“We want to make sure we can have the NCAA regionals here, if possible,” Perkins said. “We want to make sure we have the seating capacity to meet all the NCAA standards for the SWAC championships. We also would like to have in the summer time and the spring to have Little League baseball here. We want a team housed out of here. We want to be able to hold games here. We want the facility to be all year long.

“We want it to be an economic engine for the city.”