It’s just after 5pm, and cars are beginning to roll into Darden Towe Park.
Already groups of men—some young, others smack-dab in middle age—gather around pick-up trucks, passing out cans of Bud Light, the butt ends of softball bats sticking out of bags. They’ve got under four hours of sun left and a game to play,
but first things first—it’s the beer league after all.
 The city and county approved a new agreement on Darden Towe Park, a.k.a. Charlottesville’s “heart of softball.” The agreement saves both the city and county money, but will the softball fields get lights? |
Last week, both City Council and the Board of Supervisors approved a new agreement for the park on the city-county line, updating an original that hadn’t been reviewed since 1986. The new agreement changes the funding formula so that each locality pays based on its population, replacing a current system where a staff member counts cars daily and tallies which are city and which are county. That drops the city’s funding to 30.3 percent from 35.8 percent and will save the city approximately $25,000 next fiscal year. Because the car-counting staff member is no longer necessary, the county saves too, roughly $11,000.
The agreement also opens the possibility of lighting the softball fields, something the original prohibited because of the proximity of the Key West neighborhood. But Mike Svetz, director of Parks and Recreation, says he’s beginning to see the need for more night games: “We’re starting to have demand run a little hotter than supply.”
Back to the beer league. Derek Lam, who’s on the mound for his team tonight, calls Darden Towe “the heart of softball” in Charlottesville. “Best park and it don’t have lights? It needs them.” Two teammates nod between sips.
“I ain’t going to lie,” says Ryan Morris, “if it was me I wouldn’t want to have lights here.” Morris looks west past green terraces of grass to the soccer fields. Behind them, and just across Route 20, are stacks of townhomes.
Morris looks away from the houses. “But I don’t live around here, so I’m all for it.”
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