The baseball would be real, but not the bricks or the big mitt

July 29, 2011

By Chris Smith

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

If anybody can at last succeed at bringing back great, close-up, filled-seats baseball to Sonoma County, it could be Howard Leonhardt.

The restless entrepreneur, winery owner and founder of Wine Country Baseball is about to unveil a clever and perhaps financially doable vision for Cape Cod League-type premier summertime collegiate baseball at a local park made magical by a touch of Disneyland illusion.

  I don’t want to give too much away just now. But at the Wine Country league’s championship game on Aug. 20, Leonhardt will share his plan to spend about $2 million on an existing ballfield in the county and make it look like a mini-AT&T Park.

  Key to the upgrade would be great outfield canvases painted with Sonoma County scenes and objects such as AT&T’s great mitt and Coca-Cola bottle. “It wouldn’t be a $25 million park, that’s not feasible. But it would look like it,” Leonhardt said.

  Also essential to Sonoma County’s latest pursuit of a thriving, genuine baseball experience is a plan for Leonhardt and his new commissioner, Sonoma State University baseball coach John Goelz, to convert several of their existing

community teams (winecountrybaseball.com) to teams made up of visiting college players from around the nation.

  Leonhardt and Goelz, Sonoma State’s winningest coach in any sport, think that any one of several existing city, school and college ballfields would be suitable for a $2 million upgrade and looks-almost-real canvas treatment. The current first choice: SSU’s home diamond.

  Pretty soon here, Leonhardt will pitch his idea and see if anybody wants to play ball.