Naperville baseball season opens Saturday at renovated Knoch Park

Knoch Park has long been home to Ribfest, pickup football games and tennis matches, but this coming weekend it takes a back seat to America’s pastime.

The Naperville Park District is celebrating the grand reopening of the recently renovated park, at West Street and Martin Avenue, by hosting the opening game of Naperville Little League’s 60th season between the VFW Cardinals and the Naperville Baseball Academy Cubs. A brief ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Saturday will be followed by the first pitch.

The first 100 attendees will receive free Crackerjacks to enjoy during the game.

To add to the ambience of opening day, Mayor George Pradel is expected to throw out the first pitch, Community Development Manager Sue Omanson said. A Naperville Central choral group will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Park district Executive Director Ray McGury said he’s excited to get the season under way and the fields back in use.

“We are pleased to be able to officially reopen Knoch Park in time to host Little League’s 60th anniversary game,” McGury said. “Knoch Park has hosted baseball games for over 40 years. We are proud to unveil the latest improvements to this great park.”

And the teams are just as excited to be able to play on the field again.

Longtime Little League coach Ed Howe, who will manage the Cardinals against his son-in-law, Matt Lis, and the Cubs, said Knoch is a special place to play baseball. To celebrate the occasion, his team will don throwback Cardinals uniforms from the 1980s.

“Knoch has always been the premier field to play on. If you watch a Little League World Series game on television, you’ll see a resemblance to Knoch fields,” Howe said. “It’s one place in the suburbs where you get that kind of excitement. It’s fun to be going back there to play.”

The renovated playing fields are just a portion of the improvements in the south section of Knoch Park that began in the summer of 2011.

The total project included renovating the ball fields and installing a loop trail, a new restroom building, a new playground, and a picnic shelter.

The project was funded by an Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that supported the installation of a 10,000 gallon underground cistern that stores rainwater for reuse in irrigating the ball fields.