The baseball diamond on the campus of the new Meridian High School in Falls Church will not be ready for the start of the Mustangs’ baseball season.

In an extensive report to the Falls Church School Board Tuesday night, Falls Church Public Schools’ Superintendent Dr. Peter Noonan went to great painstaking lengths to explain how this has happened, but even more importantly, that he has been on top of the situation personally to make sure this will not cut short or limit the execution of a full season for the school’s baseball team.

“Nobody is more disappointed than I am” at the development, Noonan insisted. 

Late yesterday afternoon, as he promised Tuesday night, a lengthy letter was emailed out to parents and families of the Mustang players announcing the alternative plans that have been developed to ensure the team will play a full season.

In the letter, Noonan laid out the plan for playing the full season, writing, “We are executing on alternative arrangements for the first half of the season. Through the great work of Coach P.J. Anderson, he has secured the Capital One turf field in McLean for the first six of our home games for the varsity team.

“This is a beautiful field where the A-10 and other college conferences play tournaments,” Noonan added. “It currently is the home field for both Georgetown University and for Marymount University.”

He then went on to say that a 90-foot field at Providence Elementary School in Fairfax has been secured for all practices, and that for the second half of the baseball season, remaining varsity home games and all junior varsity home games will take place on the brand new turf field at Fairfax High School.

In the letter, Noonan went on to explain what happened. “To be transparent, the field installer sent us documentation indicating that the turf installation would take 8 weeks (not 12 weeks) — knowing that we had a mid-March baseball start, we held out hope to the bitter end that we would get through all the needed processes to have the field ready – unfortunately, we aren’t going to get there.”

Concerning going forward, as far as getting the field on the Meridian campus ready, he wrote, “As for the Meridian field, last Friday, we learned that the permitting process has been completed, and a ‘signature set’ of plans is being circulated for signature, providing a pathway for us to start the field installation. Additionally, we have been in continuous discussions with the permitting office about a permit for the press box so that we may also install that as soon as possible.”

He continued, “We plan to work with all of our vendors to start the project ASAP in hopes of a completion date by Spring Break. As soon as the field is complete, we will move all baseball activity back to Meridian for the remainder of the regular season, district, and regional playoff play (yes – our expectations are all high!).” 

To ensure a smooth process to get students to and from the fields for practices and games, Noonan said arrangements have been made to provide busing (charter and/or FCCPS buses) that will take the players each day. Additionally, there will be a waiver that allows students and parents to drive, drop off, and pick up. This will be the same waiver we use for the travel waiver.

Noonan concluded in his letter, “We recognize that this is not the outcome that any of us wanted relative to timing. However, at this point, this solution provides the safest play and allows for the possibility of our seniors to play on a home turf field before the end of the season. Let’s not lose the fact that we currently have one of the worst fields in Northern Virginia but in a matter of months we will have the best field and athletic complex in Northern Virginia.”

This isn’t the first time the Mustang baseball field has run into issues. An entire home season was lost a couple dozen years ago when a renovation of the field was completed lacking any protection against foul balls for the I-66 traffic passing not that far away. In the planning, someone had simply overlooked the idea that it wouldn’t be the coolest thing to have foul balls from baseball games smashing through car windshields on the interstate. 

First, a low fence was tried, but proved useless for the purpose, and eventually a very high fabric shield was installed, only to be subjected to damaging winds.