Precious Blood of Christ Catholic Church has its Field of Dreams. A baseball diamond dedicated to the late Sam Suplizio.
His first year 1953, Sam played in Binghampton, N.Y., in the Class A Eastern League, then one of the strongest minors leagues in all of baseball. I Suplizio had a terrific year in his first full minor league season, leading the all-star team with more votes than Hall-of-Famers Maris and Bill Mazeroski. His second season, in 1956, was so good that he and Tony Kubek were called up to the Yankees’ early camp in 1957. At the end of the ’56 season, Casey Stengel, then manager of the Yankees, called Suplizio, who was then playing in Birmingham, to New York to get used to playing in Yankee Stadium. Stengel was planning to move Mickey Mantle to right field to accommodate Suplizio in centerfield as the team chased the pennant. The move was designed to give Suplizio the chance to play in Yankee Stadium while giving Mantle’s ailing legs a rest. Things couldn’t have looked better for the young rookie. He made the Eastern League all-star teams in ’55 and ’56 and he had been named best defensive player in the Yankee organization three years running because of his skills in centerfield.
In 1956, with eight days left before heading to New York, he was playing in a game against Nashville and broke his arm in seven places. He never played in the Major Leagues. He coached for the Mariners, Cardinals, Angels and Brewers and worked to bring a Major League baseball team to Colorado and to bring the Junior College World Series to Grand Junction, Colo.”
Our “field of dreams” will help kids and families have a place to play ball — baseball, soccer, pick-up ball — and enjoy the adjacent playground.