Midtown residents breathe life back into Wigle Rec Park baseball field

Many of the good things that are happening in Detroit today are often the result of everyday residents taking the lead in improving their communities. The latest example of that is a small band of young people who are rehabbing the baseball field at the Wigle Recreation Center in Midtown.

The group of close to a dozen people who live near the park close to Martin Luther King Boulevard and the Lodge Freeway have been mowing the grounds, weeding the field, cutting down brush along the backstop and otherwise preparing their little field of dreams for playing this summer.

"Me and my friends are pretty athletic and like to be outdoors," says Matt Duffy, one of the organizer of the Wigle Recreation Center baseball field cleanup team. "This just seemed like the perfect place to fix up and play some games."

The group meets on weekends and organizes around a Facebook page that can be found here. They plan to install bases and make the field ready for some competitive games by late spring. The group also hopes to hook up with Detroit Mower Gang to keep the grass in check for the rest of the playing season.

"It's in fairly good shape," Duffy says. "It just needs to be cleaned up."

Source: Matt Duffy, organizer of Wigle Recreation Center baseball field cleanup team
Writer: Jon Zemke

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