Home Run Hail : Man Nears Victory in Battle Over Baseball Bombardment

Austin Schoenfeld wants everyone to know that he likes baseball. He even played on a Little League team when he was young. But for the past eight years the Thousand Oaks man has winced at the crack of a bat.

Schoenfeld lives about 230 feet from the home plate of Diamond 1 at Fiore Field, something he says has caused him nothing but trouble. About 80 to 90 home run balls--hit by both Little Leaguers and adults--sail over his fence and into his back yard each year.

Several windows have been broken. Guests have scurried for cover at his back-yard barbecues. His dog has gotten sick from munching on the covers of the baseballs. And Schoenfeld lives in fear of being struck by one of the balls.

“You hear the crack of the bat and you look to the sky,” Schoenfeld said. “You know the ball is coming your way, but you don’t know where it’s going to land. It’s like a missile. For eight years I have lived with this threat, this danger.”

But Schoenfeld’s worries will soon be over, or at least that’s what officials have promised. Next month the Conejo Valley Recreation and Parks District is scheduled to shut down Diamond 1 and relocate Diamond 2, a decision that was made after years of controversy and debate.

Schoenfeld’s story is a familiar one around the park.

Shortly after he moved into his house, he asked district officials to do something to stop the balls from flying into his yard. He said he had not realized that living near a baseball diamond would be a problem when he bought the house.

First, district officials decided to put up a 20-foot fence, but Schoenfeld said the number of wayward balls increased as a result.

“You put an obstacle in front of a kid and he wants to get over that obstacle,” Schoenfeld said. It instantly became more of a challenge to hit a home run over the tall fence, he said.

Schoenfeld said some players even went out of their way to antagonize him.

“One time I caught a kid purposely blasting balls over the fence,” Schoenfeld said. “At that age they have no conception.”

He said he became so angry that he decided not to return the balls to the players. Schoenfeld has about 500 baseballs in boxes in his garage.

As a result, Schoenfeld became known as a spoilsport.

“Let’s just put it this way, there are some people who resent him,” one district official said.

Schoenfeld said youngsters would climb up on the fence and yell at him. Sometimes he would argue back, but “some of the kids were bigger than me.”

He returned to the recreation and parks district board and asked that other measures be taken to control the problem.

According to Fletcher Freedman, the district’s administrator of parks and planning, the recreation board decided to fence off the field, making it off limits to everyone but the Little Leaguers and other authorized teams. But that didn’t work either. Heavy-hitting adults would climb the fence when no one else was around.

This year, the district board decided to take drastic action, Freedman said. The board voted to spend $69,000 to close Diamond 1, build a new diamond at a nearby field and reverse Diamond 2.

“He has the right to sit in his back yard without getting crunched in the head,” said Mike Berger, chairman of the district board. “It was just a matter of time until something serious happened.”

Although Conejo Valley Little League officials, the main group using the field, agree that something needs to be done to remedy the problem, spending $69,000 is not the answer, they say.

“We would like to see that money spent to expand our existing facilities,” said Bob Lowrey, a Little League field director. “They’re spending nearly $70,000 to solve a problem that affects a few people, yet there is no money to put restroom facilities at the field.”

John Mihalsky, the Little League president, suggested making diamonds 1 and 2 smaller, so they could be used only by young children. He said the diamonds would then be ideal for the Little League Challenger program, a special group for handicapped children.

“If they were to shorten that field and put up trees in the outfield, no one would have a challenge of knocking balls over the fence,” Mihalsky said. “We could make a homeowner happy first and keep a field so the little kids will have a place to play.”

But Freedman said some district officials doubt making the diamonds smaller will solve the problems.

“It may resolve the Little Leaguers’ problem, but it will not solve all the problems,” Freedman said. “Adults will still use the field.”

Meanwhile, Schoenfeld said he worries that in the end district officials will do nothing to fix the situation.

He refuses to be photographed with a boxful of baseballs he has collected over the years because he said it would irritate some district officials, forcing them into apathy.

“I don’t want things to be messed up now,” Schoenfeld said. “I’ve waited eight years.”