Madera Coyotes baseball ready to play at Mel Parker

After waiting almost a year to play a home game, the Madera Coyote baseball team will finally be able to call Mel Parker Field home again on Friday, hopefully, said Madera High athletics director John Fernandez.

The vagabond Coyotes have called Fresno City College’s John Euless Park and Madera South’s Eddie Chapa Field home since Mel Parker Field’s backstops were destroyed during a wind storm on April 22 last year. Madera hosts Bullard-Fresno at 3:30 p.m.

“That’s the plan is to play at Mel Parker Field,” Fernandez said before the weekend’s storm. “I went by Wednesday and they made some modifications to the backstop. They are going to grade out the inside of the backstop that will be done by the weekend.”

With less than a week left before the Friday deadline, Fernandez said there is still plenty of work to be done.

“We still have some concrete work that has to be done around the snack bar and dugout area,” he said. “We need a strip of concrete to the existing bathroom. Hopefully that will be done by Friday. The parking lot by the field house has been reconfigured to allow more handicapped parking.”

Portable bleachers will also be brought in for the remainder of the season.

“The school district has identified portable bleachers from the district to put into the field to give us adequate seating for the season and for Babe Ruth as well,” Fernandez said. “The permanent bleachers will take 4-6 weeks to get installed so that won’t be done until after Babe Ruth League is over.”

Fernandez said they won’t have a ceremony of the remodeling, just yet.

“We won’t have a ceremony just yet. I want to wait until everything gets done.” Fernandez said. “The complete upgrade of the field won’t be done until the summer.

“It’s a time-consuming process and appreciate the community’s understanding. We want to be able to celebrate our Seniors on our home field, unlike last year. We’d like to thank Madera South, big time with Andrea Devine and Bobby Waits for allowing us to play on their field. We take care of Madera kids. The community’s kids are the most important thing to us.”