It’s time to play

It has been a long time coming, but next weekend -- finally -- the

Bonita Canyon Sports Park will open for play.

The 33.5-acre park, Newport Beach’s largest, will provide needed

relief for baseball and soccer leagues that have so many players and

too few fields. Looking across those wide swatches of grass might

even ease some of the discontent that grew as the park’s opening

dragged further and further on.

The first and greatest delay came when the building contractor,

Castello Inc., pulled out of the $7-million project because of

financial problems. An April 2001 scheduled opening flew by. A July

2002 deadline followed.

Then there was a battle earlier this year over the grass being put

in at the park. Youth sports league officials challenged the city’s

conviction that the turf needed to take full root before taking the

brunt of kids’ racing feet.

Next Sunday’s opening will include all those fields. When its

opening is finished in the fall, the park will have four baseball

fields, two full-size and three peewee soccer fields, two children’s

playgrounds, two tennis courts, a basketball court, three restroom

buildings, 300 parking spaces and pedestrian walkways.

In a community so dedicated to youth sports, that lineup is

impressive.

There will be much reason to join the grand opening ceremony at 3

p.m. at the park, which is along Bonita Canyon Road between Prairie

Road and MacArthur Boulevard. The celebration will run through 6:30

p.m., with a free concert by the Rockit Scientists set to begin at 5

p.m.

And then the games can begin.