Thousands of dollars in flood damage at Springfield baseball stadium

Heavy rains last weekend caused thousands of dollars in damage at Carleton Davidson Stadium, home of the Champion City Kings and Wittenberg University baseball teams.

“When we rolled in it was pretty bad,” King’s owner Rick White said.

The Kings were on the road playing away games when the storms hit Springfield last weekend and the team returned to find their equipment and other items damaged, including eight cars.

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“The field was under water,” White said. “We lost all of our bats, balls, thousands of dollars worth of food; all of our freezers and stuff were completely turned over.”

National Trail Parks and Recreation District Assistant Director Brad Boyer said parts of the stadium area are in the Buck Creek flood plain and the water spilled into the stadium. He said officials don’t know what the cost of the damage is but it’s extensive.

“Everything is being assessed still,” he said. “There is some damage to the boiler and radiator. They are operating but not properly so we are not sure if they need to be replaced.”

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The park district owns parts of the stadium while the city of Springfield owns other parts, Boyer said, and both entities have insurance policies on the stadium. They are now working together to figure out which policy will be used to cover the losses.

“Everything in the building is our responsibility to clean up,” Boyer said.

The water was gone on Wednesday but Boyer said park district employees were working to ensure further damage to the property is avoided.

“We are trying to make sure everything stays dry,” he said, noting that mold is a concern.

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This isn’t the first time the stadium has flooded, Boyer said. Whenever there is a significant rain, the stadium is in jeopardy. White said the team has had to deal with this issue before.

“Two and a half years ago, we had the same problem,” He said. “We lost 13 cars and all of our stuff. We don’t know why it’s happening.”

He said the team had to cancel a couple games because of the water and said he hopes to team is able to move forward and make sure an incident like this never happens again.

“We’re just hoping that we can get it figured out so in the future we don’t have this problem,” White said.

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