Acquisition of Maranatha Park designed to expand Complete Game Training Academy

QUINCY — Rich Polak believes the purchase of Maranatha Park is the next step in growing Complete Game Training Academy, a baseball and softball training facility at 602 N. Second.

“We’re going to leave the one field that has the lights on it at the same dimensions and just upgrade that,” Polak said. “We’re still deciding on where we’re going to put the high school park. It will be a multi-purpose field as far as age goes. Our high school program will end up practicing out there most of the time. 

“Actually the idea is to build a building out there so we can have everything in one location. There’s a two-year, three-year and five-year plan for all that stuff.”

Polak closed the deal on the eight-acre property with the Catholic Youth Organization on Dec. 17. The sale was for $199,000, according to Adams County Recorder’s Office.

Polak first contacted Tom McLaughlin, president of the CYO, more than a year ago to express his interest. 

Maranatha Park was built in 1971

“He’s been bugging me for almost a couple years,” McLaughlin said with a laugh. “He just wanted to see if we were giving any thoughts to sell the place. I told him at the time that we were not. However, if we decided we want to get rid of it, I’d let him know. 

“So this past fall, we decided to go ahead (and sell). We weren’t using it. All we were doing was renting it, and we weren’t getting enough rent to save on expenses. We didn’t really have anything planned for out there, so we thought maybe it’s time to get rid of it. Let somebody else have it. I called Rich and told him we were going to put it up for sale. He gave me an offer before we ever put it up for sale.”

Maranatha Park, built in 1971, is just west of North 12th Street on Einhaus Lane. It was home to regional fast-pitch softball and Little League baseball leagues for many years. Quincy Notre Dame, Quincy High School and Quincy University all called Maranatha Park home for their softball programs. It was the host for an NCAA Division II national softball tournament during the 1980s.

The CYO bought the park from brothers Ralph and Larry Smith in May 2000 with part of $150,000 in city bonding authority approved by the Quincy City Council. The hope at the time was for the CYO to use the field for youth softball and baseball leagues, as well as adult softball leagues. A second field was built to the east in future years.

CYO hasn’t used park for five years

However, McLaughlin said the CYO hasn’t used the park for the past five years.

“We’ve kept it up, and every summer, we were renting it out,” he said. “We had a lot of Little League baseball teams and traveling teams that were wanting a place to practice. We worked out a deal with them and let them use it and set a rent that was reasonable. But we weren’t making enough to really pay the expenses, so we decided it was probably better off to give it to somebody who had a good use for it — and Rich does.”

Polak played for the New York Yankees in their minor league system for seven years after being drafted in the 20th round of the 1989 amateur draft. He was an assistant softball coach at Culver-Stockton College and an assistant baseball coach at Quincy Notre Dame before opening Complete Game in November 2014.

Polak has 71 players on six teams that travel throughout the Midwest during the summer. He believes the acquisition of Maranatha Park is what his business needed to spark growth.

“It’s just been difficult with so many different things going on in the community for our teams to get a good time for practice,” he said. “Now we would eventually like to get to the point where we have 12 to 15 teams on the baseball side, and we’re going to explore the softball side down the road as well.

“Growing incrementally instead of just all at once serves everybody better, helps us still provide great training and provide the service each family needs. We really take pride in the training our staff provides. We want to make sure this continues to be a place for everybody to come train.”