Rage plans spring start for baseball

In May, Rage team manager and spokesman Travis Arney approached the Moorcroft Council requesting permission to call Moorcroft home and was approved with the understanding that the group would be responsible for upgrading the upper baseball field in Westview Park, bringing the diamond to regulatory specifications on which their team could play.

Arney, at the time, assured the council of the potential for money coming into town via the games and the increase of value by said upgrades, paid for by team sponsors.

Work was soon started, fence was removed and the organization brought in a frontend loader, removing topsoil on the infield and uncapping previously closed sprinklers.

Rage member Jackie Morgan, who was working onsite, explained plans to lay sod that weekend and bases were established that very day, according to their plan. However, that was as far as the agreed-upon upgrades to the diamond got before work stopped, with no expansion of the outfield to proper size nor laying sod in the disturbed area.

The Rage volunteers did not return or continue work throughout the remaining months of summer. Arney recently explained that the team had been playing all summer: "We just got done...spending, literally, four months on the road."

Arney spoke to the team's adjusted plans with the close of the season.

"The plan is, now that we're back into fund raising mode and work mode, to try to get that diamond ready by spring. We've just got to reskin it and start laying the ground work again," he said.

He hopes to be ready for the team's first game in April.