WEST JORDAN -- The baseball field sparkles in the middle of otherwise barren land, proving what can happen with a little water, care, cash . . . and love.
Sorta like the boys out on the field wearing the blue "Eagles" uniforms.Welcome to the Salt Lake Valley's newest baseball field on the campus of the Utah Boys Ranch at 5300 West and 9000 South.
Way out west, where the city of West Jordan borders, well, nothing, sits the new diamond of the Fighting Eagles.
That's "fighting" in the good sense of the word.
Fighting to stay off drugs. Fighting to stop gangbanging. Fighting to make it through adolescence.
Donna Evans, West Jordan's mayor, throws out the first pitch after Heather Corriveau, a Boys Ranch resident "parent," sings the first national anthem. A crowd of maybe 150 sit on plastic chairs to watch the historic inaugural game, most of them students, some of them moms and dads of the troubled youth who make up the Boys Ranch student body -- not enough moms and dads, but about what you'd expect.
The game's start is delayed a moment so the mayor can back up her Ford Explorer, parked just a few feet from right field.
Meanwhile, Chris Buttars, director of the Boys Ranch, beams. He is proud. As proud as Kevin Costner assessing his ball diamond in "Field of Dreams." As proud as George Steinbrenner after the Yankees won the World Series.
What's happening in front of his eyes is already a triumph, and they haven't even started the game yet.
Three months ago, this spot was rocks and sagebrush. Now look at it.
The idea behind the baseball field, as well as the gymnasium under construction just a few feet to the south, is to move the older boys at the Ranch -- who officially attend a high school named West Ridge Academy -- into mainstream athletic activity.
They aren't here because they're angels. They have been placed here by their parents and others to "rehab" from any number of potentially destructive youthful indiscretions.
But that doesn't mean it's all bread and water and solitary confinement.
With its 100-plus students, West Ridge qualifies to compete in the 1A (small school) classification of the Utah High School Activities Association.
As long as it has some place to play.
The first difference you notice is that there is no difference.
The kids in the "reform" school, the ones on the edge, battling their way back, working at those chips on their shoulders, look exactly like the kids from St. Joseph, the private Catholic school that has bused down from Ogden for the game.
In six months, they might even trade spots. You never know. It's the nature of adolescence.
But out there on the diamond, they are all one big whole.
The cool thing about baseball is it's an equal opportunity sport. You can play it no matter where you've been or what you've done. Look at Babe Ruth. He gave them fits at the orphanage. Look at Darryl Strawberry. He's still giving them fits. The great separator in baseball is the curve ball, not societal stigmas.
That and hitting the cut-off man.
It figures to be a tough first year for coach Dave Ballard and the Fighting Eagles. They are the high school equivalent of an expansion franchise -- all new players, all new team.
The nature of the school, in fact, means they will always be an expansion franchise.
Always developing players who can then move on and contribute greatly somewhere else.
At West Ridge Academy, no one complains about that. It's precisely the way the Fighting Eagles spell victory.
Send e-mail to benson@desnews.com, fax 801-237-2527. Lee Benson's column runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.