By By BRUCE HIXON Sports Editor
Now all the East Brewton Youth Baseball Complex needs are some players and games.
The final piece of the project was completed last week when the sod was laid out on one Babe Ruth and two Little League diamonds.
"This is a big moment for us. This has been a project that has been three years in the making," East Brewton mayor Terry Clark said.
Although the sod is now in place, the project is not actually completed just yet.
"The final stage is actually having the sod take root. We could use some rain in the next few days to help that part of it," Clark said.
Clark indicated Mother Nature had often been a big opponent of the project since construction began.
"Earlier this year it was unusually dry and we made a lot of progress during that time. Since then it has been pretty wet. There were several times we had to stop work because it was too wet to get the equipment in," Clark said. "Weather has often a big problem for us because as a
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whole it's been pretty wet the last couple of years."
Clark said work is concluding in about the expected time frame.
"There was an outside chance we might have been able to play a little bit on it his year, but the weather didn't allow it. We had to rely so much on in-town service workers. It seemed like when we could get the workers, it was too wet. When it was dry, we couldn't get the workers. All in all, this is actually about when we had hoped to have everything done," Clark said.
In addition to weather, the other obstacle the project battled was funds.
"We had several people donate to the project and we couldn't have done it without them. The big key was a grant we got from the state. The community and surrounding area raised around $100,000 and then the grant matched those funds," Clark said.
The facility includes lights, scoreboard, dugouts, fencing and a concession stand/storage building.
"We really needed the facility. The diamond we used at the high school was just in constant use. We had around 12 teams using it. The youth of East Brewton deserve a facility like this," Clark said. "We're ready to go. We'll be playing here next season."