Ballgame Ban at Will Rogers Park Peeves Picnickers

This Saturday and Sunday, as on most weekend summer days, hundreds of people will pack picnic lunches, soccer balls, volleyballs, baseballs, gloves and Frisbees and head out to Will Rogers State Historic Park for a day of recreation and relaxation.

But they would be advised to leave their balls, Frisbees and other paraphernalia at home. For much of the day, they won’t be able to use them.

Under a policy that has perplexed innumerable park visitors, state park rangers at the venerable Pacific Palisades recreation area have placed the huge grassy field near the Will Rogers ranch house off limits to all “game activities and group gatherings.” Even whiffle balls are banned.

Instead, picnickers are told that if they must play ball, they must do it on the neighboring polo field. On Saturdays and Sundays, the field is reserved for polo tournaments until early afternoon.

“Are you serious?” said would-be Frisbee flinger Chris Johnson, when a park ranger told him his flying disc was banned from the huge field. “You can’t be serious. You’re joking, right?”

But it’s no joke, says Terry Brann, supervising ranger of the east sector of the Santa Monica Mountains District State Parks. He said the policy was instituted nearly 1 1/2 years ago because sports activities and large gatherings created distractions during the daily tours of Will Rogers’ house--the focal point of the 186-acre park.

“The reason that we did it is that we are a state historic park and not primarily a recreation area,” Brann said. “Our mandated purpose is to bring the Will Rogers story to the public.

“Our intent is not to give people a hard time. And we are not attempting to limit any legitimate form of recreation. But my staff and I had a problem here and we couldn’t ignore it, even if it means that some people are not going to be pleased by (the policy).”

Park rangers say the area’s historic designation makes it more restrictive than most state parks. Under the 1944 deed in which Rogers’ heirs turned the land over to the state, park officials must guarantee that the former ranch will be operated as a living memorial to Will Rogers, according to Brann.

If the state fails to preserve the historic nature of the park (where Rogers lived from about 1920 until his death in 1935), then the heirs have the option of taking the park back, Brann said.

However, many park visitors say they fail to see a conflict between picnicking and ball playing 50 to 100 yards from the ranch house. Critics of the policy maintain that the grassy area, about the size of two football fields, is large enough to accommodate all interests.

Brann acknowledged that rangers are told to keep people from even sitting too close to the ranch house. He said park officials like to maintain a “minimum clearance” of about 100 feet.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially since they know they always have polo tournaments on weekends,” said Jill Tyler, shortly after a ranger told her that her daughter’s kickball was prohibited on the grass. “I could see if they banned football or baseball games. But this seems a bit excessive. I mean, you couldn’t even hit the house from here.”

Some people have complained about the rigid stance of the rangers, including one park visitor who said he was told by a ranger that he couldn’t play ball there because he was on “sacred ground.”

Brann acknowledged that park rangers probably hear more complaints during the summer, when weekend crowds are large. He said rangers had tried previously to work out a compromise plan that allowed some ball playing and large picnic crowds on the grass far away from the house. But that plan failed.

‘We tried to have it both ways, but it didn’t work out,” he said. “We try to use our judgment. If it’s in the middle of the week with not many people here and somebody is out there throwing a whiffle ball, we probably won’t bother them. But that doesn’t work on weekends when the problems arise because of the polo tournaments.”

Ball players can have the run of the polo field after the tournaments are completed. But even that occasionally creates conflict between equestrians and picnickers.

“Very often, some recreational activities are not compatible with horses, but one of the things that we’re doing here is to maintain the ambience of the way thing were when Will Rogers lived here, and that includes the polo and horses,” Brann said. “This park is not designed to be a sports park, but we try and accommodate those people with other interests and we believe we’ve worked out a good compromise.”