Texas Rangers eye building a second MLB Youth Academy — this one in Fort Worth
The Texas Rangers continue to erect and open new buildings all over the globe, and they have their eye on a new project in Fort Worth.
Texas Rangers CEO and chairman of the ownership committee Neil Leibman said Friday the team has been in contact with Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price about building a youth-centric baseball training facility in Fort Worth.
“That is the next place we’d like to go,” Leibman said. “Fort Worth is not some step-child. We have told the mayor how important Fort Worth is to us, and all of Tarrant County.”
This proposed facility would consist of multiple outdoor fields, along with some indoor playing areas, training rooms and office space. Leibman would not comment on where they would want to build at this time.
“It sounds like a wonderful plan,” Price said via text message. “Very early conversations between the Rangers, [Fort Worth Park and Recreation Department] and Fort Worth Independent School District. They are looking at a couple of locations not to be disclosed just yet. Exciting project.”
Leibman would like to build something similar to the Texas Rangers Youth Academy, the 17-acre complex the team opened in West Dallas just more than two years ago. One of the aims of that facility is to provide kids from economically-challenged backgrounds the chance to play baseball and softball.
Located on Bickers Street in West Dallas, the Rangers Youth Academy includes two fields, two Little League fields, a T-ball field and batting cages. Johnny Oates Field, named after the late Texas Rangers manager, is a lighted diamond that includes stadium seating for up 750 people, a concession stand and a press box.
The indoor portion of the complex includes a turf infield as well as batting cages. There are also classrooms and a workout room. It also serves as a spot where the Rangers can train and workout in the offseason.
Essentially, Leibman said the entire concept could be replicated in Fort Worth. “It would be the same, only maybe a little bit smaller.”
The idea is to provide a spot in Fort Worth where baseball can be played and taught year-round. The youth facility in West Dallas holds coaching clinics, tournaments, skill camps and other events.
The classrooms are used for tutoring sessions, college prep classes, college and career fairs and financial literacy programs. Major League Baseball has also used the rooms to host workshops for alternative careers.
The MLB Youth Academy project started in 2006 with a facility that opened in Compton, California. At the time the West Dallas facility opened in December of 2017 it became the eighth MLB youth academy in the United States. Three more, in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, remain in the construction phase.
The opening of a new facility in Fort Worth would be the continuation of a construction phase by the Rangers that includes the new retractable-roof stadium in Arlington that will open next month.
Leibman said the team wants to build up the density around the new Globe Life Field as a location where people could work, play and live. It was vision that the team’s previous owner, Tom Hicks, also had but never could execute.
Last summer, the team opened a 24-acre youth training academy in the Dominican Republic. On Friday, the team had a ribbon-cutting ceremony for “Texas Rangers Village,” across the street from its spring training stadium in Surprise. The “village” is a place where players can stay year-round or as they train or rehab during the season.
To date, the main presence the Rangers have in Fort Worth is their team shop located on Main Street in Sundance Square.
This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 8:00 AM.
