Baseball is Back

The pitcher's mound was rebuilt for baseball players at Cerrito Vista Park.

El Cerrito High School’s varsity baseball team will once again play home games at Cerrito Vista Park after a year of playing on the high school field instead.

Wayne Chin, the team’s new varsity coach and its junior varsity coach for the past three years, was happy to be back at Cerrito Vista with his team on a recent warm and sunny February day.

The varsity team’s first game of the year will be a preseason scrimmage on Friday, Feb. 21, against Athenian. The game starts at 3 p.m. Admission is free.

Coach Chin said the field is in “very playable” condition, thanks to the city of El Cerrito. “They did some rebuilding of certain areas of the field. It looks great.”

On March 1, El Cerrito Youth Baseball (ECYB) players will also start using Cerrito Vista and the city’s other baseball fields at Castro, Central, Harding, Tassajara, and Canyon Trail parks.

Lance Kolding, left, is the city's ace for baseball field maintenance. Bill Claus, ECHS fan, poses with a shovel.

Experienced Field Care

Lance Kolding, who retired from the city public works department in 2023 after years of caring for its fields, is back part-time and has been working on Cerrito Vista for several months.

“People think you can come back and fix up the field in a couple of weeks, but that doesn’t work,” Kolding said. “We have a lot of ball fields in El Cerrito. They are well used, especially this one.”

At Cerrito Vista this year, Kolding rebuilt the pitcher’s mound, reseeded grass, cut out dirt areas, and will cover the dirt areas with infield mix topped with lava sand. The recent hard rains washed away some materials, requiring Kolding to redo some work. There’s also more to be done at the other fields.

Looking to the future, Kolding is teaching a new full-time public works employee who grew up in El Cerrito and played baseball here to take over field maintenance.

Meanwhile, Kolding said, “I’m outside with my tractor and my shovels. I have other things to do but I make time for this.”

View the schedule for El Cerrito High School varsity baseball.

Thanks to Bill Claus for the story tip about El Cerrito baseball.

This story was updated on Feb. 23 to fix the link to the baseball schedule.