MEMPHIS, Tenn — After nearly 20 years, the Gameday Baseball complex in Cordova is closing.
The non-profit made the announcement Thursday morning on Facebook with a long goodbye post.
“Both my boys played baseball here and it’s going to be greatly missed,” said property manager Anna Kilgore.
It was more than 18 years ago that the late Mark Neel founded the Gameday Baseball complex with the goal of creating a place where kids could grow their love for baseball.
“We've done a lot through the years to keep this going because it was a dream, and we saw the benefit that it was bringing to the community,” said Mark’s wife Stacey Neel, who is now the owner of the ball parks.
But Kilgore said the cost of maintaining the park has become a struggle. She said they’ve had to spend money upgrading to turf infields and endured multiple years of damaging weather and competition from other facilities. She said just the cost of planting new grass each year is close to $70,000.
“We had two horrible years of just bad weather with the ice storms and the snow that collapsed all of our shade structures,” Kilgore said.
That’s why Stacey and her board members made a difficult decision.
“The opportunity came along, and the Memphis-Shelby County school system was trying to gather enough land in this area for a new school,” she said. “They were talking to us along with others in the area.”
MSCS said it was during the August Board Work Session that the Shelby County Board of Education approved the purchase sales agreement with Gameday Healthy Kids Foundation.
In March, the school board approved an agreement to buy nearly 36 acres across from the baseball complex on Fischer Steel Road.
MSCS board members have said that property is the front-runner to build a new high school.
Stacey said it still fits her husband’s dream.
“A different purpose, but another way for it to support the community,” she said.