Union Stadium Quick Facts

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"BALLPARK RISES ON LEAVEN OF FREE LABOR, MATERIALS"

Excerpt from the Sacramento Bee Archives - By Max Miller, Staff Writer

    While Major League Baseball may be somewhere in the city's future, a drive by Sacramento's construction industry, headed by 12 building-craft unions, is humming in concert toward completion of a $2 million community baseball stadium at Sacramento City College.
    On the construction site, one could stand in the shade provided by the imposing physique of big Bill Meehan, as he recounts how the craft unions, from bricklayers and ironworkers to electricians and plumbers, have put out free-of-charge sweat, muscle and know-how to build the "miniature, big league" ballpark on the SCC campus.
Between well-aimed streams of tobacco juice, Meehan, the head of the Sacramento Building Trades Council, recounted recently how the unions "just want everybody to know that we're not the bleep-bleeps a lot of people think we are."
    "It's mind-boggling, what's been done," he said. There's nobody in town that hasn't contributed in some small way.
    "We (the trade unions) came on board as soon as we were satisfied that this was going to be a community stadium that wouldn't be used for professional baseball."
    It's description as "miniature major league" comes from Jerry Weinstein, the SCC Panther's winningest baseball coach, who forecasts that the new, 1,500-seat facility on the campus at Freeport Boulevard and 12th Avenue will be the envy of every college - and some small cities across the country.
    And Weinstein credits the backing of the Building Trades Council and the generosity of Sacramento building contractors and suppliers for the realization of his dream of a baseball stadium at SCC.
    "Originally we figured that a $200-a-seat donation would have raised $300,000," Weinstein said as he watched his vision transformed into what is estimated now to be nearly $2 million worth of skilled labor, concrete and steel.
    "The key element was the labor unions who said, 'We'll come in and build it for you,'" the coach said. It was then we knew that by hook or by crook we could get the materials.
    "The camaraderie that has grown around this project has been amazing, and the people involved have not been boisterous about their contributions."
    Although the project has been two years in planning and is nearing completion after six months of construction, Weinstein sounds as though even he can't believe it.
    With a joyful bounce in his stride as he tours the construction site, Weinstein gleefully points out the location of the twin locker rooms, equipment storage, the laundry facilities, umpires' room and what will be the plexiglass-enclosed "VIP" room behind home plate.
    Seating comes next, Weinstein said, noting the possibility that some local baseball history may be enshrined in the new park with the installation of light towers that once illuminated old Edmunds Field, the Broadway home of the revered Sacramento Solons.
    Listed among the firms that have donated time and materials for the 1,500-seat grandstand are Barsteel, Vela Steel, Golden State Erectors, Camblin Steel Service, Gayle Manufacturing, and Sacramento builder Greg Lukenbill contributed much of the structural steel and reinforcing iron.
    The acknowledged driver behind the project is Mickey Mynsted, the easygoing business agent for the Iron Workers Union Local 118, who rallied the unions and others to the cause.
    Brought on the scene at the behest of "a friend from one of the (American) Legion teams," who asked him to help raise money, Mynsted said, "None of us realized this was going to grow as big as it has."
    The unions have used it to advantage as an apprentice training program, and Mynsted said, "hundreds" of journeymen from the 12 unions involved have volunteered their services.
    "Most of the work has been done on Saturday, but a lot of the guys are down here working every day in their spare time or between jobs," he said.