Tourism Cares brings volunteers to Doubleday Field

Doubleday Field has long been a part of the Cooperstown landscape and is woven into the fabric of the community. Baseball fans come from around the country to visit the Hall of Fame and walk on the dirt at Doubleday to experience baseball history.

However, with hundreds of games played a year, and a three-person staff, upkeep of Doubleday Field – which is owned and operated by the Village of Cooperstown – can often be a challenge.

But one man had a plan to change this. His name is Jay Smith and he’s the owner and president of Sports Travel and Tours or STAT, the travel partner of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Smith’s plan was to get volunteers to come help work at Doubleday for an afternoon, in an effort to help lend a hand to one of baseball’s most historic landmarks.

“We actually brought it to the attention of the town,” Smith said. “I had this dream, it was to bring a group of people here and for them to say ‘We painted the wall at Doubleday Field.’”

Smith worked in conjunction with Tourism Cares, a non-profit, charitable organization based out of Massachusetts that works within the tourism industry. Tourism Cares’ mission is to give back to tourism destinations in a number of ways, including facility maintenance. The organization has also assisted in disaster relief efforts.

“What we are best known for is what we are doing here today,” said Tourism Cares Director of Events Jessica Ahern. “Volunteer programs that take people employed in travel and bring them to the places that their customers visit, to give back.”

Tourism Cares primarily focuses on helping out with time-consuming tasks that often can go unattended to due time constraints. During their experience June 12 at Doubleday Field, volunteers helped in various duties such as painting the wall in left field and pulling weeds.

One person who is certainly grateful for the help of the volunteers is Doubleday Field supervisor Quentin Hasak. Due to the high volume of games played at the park each year, Hasak and the other two Doubleday employees that assist him, are often strapped for time and unable to do some of the tasks required at the field.

“To be honest, I was so ecstatic they were bringing people in,” Hasak said. “I told them not to worry about materials, supplies, or all that. You bring the people, I’ll have the stuff.”

Smith and Ahern first contacted Hasak and Cooperstown mayor Jeff Katz about the project last December. The volunteer work is something Katz was enthusiastic about, especially considering the historical nature of Doubleday Field and Cooperstown.

“It’s so engrained in the national psyche that this is literally the birthplace of baseball,” Katz said. “The Hall has been here 76 years, Doubleday Field will be 100 in 2020. When you look at the scope of baseball history, this is it.”

All totaled, Tourism Cares and its volunteers spent close to five hours working on Doubleday Field, and progress was already coming along quickly, less than an hour into the morning.

“I’m watching the wall turn green faster than I ever thought it would,” Hasak said. “And that makes me happy.”