Needham's baseball community faces a four-year squeeze starting in March 2028, when Warner Field at DeFazio Park shuts down for the $325.4 million Pollard Middle School construction project.

The closure will take one of the town's three 90-foot diamonds offline until April 2032, leaving up to 11 teams from Needham High School and Needham Baseball & Softball competing for time on just two remaining fields. One of those, Memorial Field, frequently floods after as little as a quarter inch of rain.

"Losing that field, it would be almost impossible for us to run programs even at half capacity of what we are now," NBS president Dave Volante told the Select Board at its July 21 meeting, as reported by Needham Local.

Memorial floods often. Volante said the town will effectively drop to "one and a half" usable 90-foot diamonds because the backup field is so unreliable. Needham High fields three teams on 90-foot diamonds each spring (varsity, JV and freshman), while NBS runs six to eight teams at that level. The Rockets have regularly moved games to Warner when Memorial was unplayable, and the varsity program hosts NBS youth players for practice sessions six times a year, underscoring how tightly the high school and youth programs share field resources.

Matthew Ching, commander of Needham's American Legion Post 14, urged the board at the same July 21 session to explore partnerships with Babson College and St. Sebastian's School for additional diamond access. "This is a pretty serious concern because we have a lot of kids playing," Ching said. "We like to see the kids out, off the video games."

Park and Recreation Commission member Cynthia Chastin acknowledged the "major disruption" the project will cause at a July commission meeting. Baseball leaders are pushing the town to invest in drainage improvements at Memorial Field to make it a more reliable home diamond during the closure window.

Warner Field will serve as construction laydown space and house underground geothermal wells for the new school. A Memorandum of Agreement unanimously approved by the Select Board on Monday, Aug. 3, commits to restoring the field to its current or better condition, including a new playing surface, a replacement irrigation system and an ADA-accessible walkway from Pollard through the MBTA tunnel to the outfield. Restoration funding is built into the Pollard project's overall budget.

As we reported Aug. 7, the Select Board voted 4-1 to place the Pollard project on the Tuesday, Nov. 3 ballot as a debt exclusion override. If voters approve, construction would begin on the timeline that takes Warner offline in spring 2028.

No date has been announced for a formal discussion of Memorial Field upgrades or partnership agreements with Babson and St. Sebastian's.