New batting facility in Niagara Falls brings ‘priceless’ value for local youth baseball

A new state-of-the-art facility opened in Niagara Falls Thursday, giving young baseball players in the region a place to hone their skills.

Thirteen-year-old Declan Jones has lofty goals in baseball, and plays as an outfielder and pitcher for the Niagara Falls Falcons.

“My goal is probably to go D1 (college baseball), I’m really hoping to get into the college program and see where life takes me from there,” said Jones.

He lives and breathes baseball.

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“I love how competitive it is, and how you have to like baseball, like you can fail so many times and still be one of the best in that,” said Jones. “You have to practice every day to be good at it, it’s really too hard a sport to be good at.”

The Mayor of Niagara Falls Jim Diodati was at WL Houck Park Thursday to officially open a new batting tunnel facility.

“This is fantastic, I mean this is the evolution of baseball in Niagara Falls,” said Diodati. “A lot of great baseball players have come through our program, a lot of OBA (Ontario Baseball Association) champions have come from here, gone on to great success around the world, and this is the opportunity for them to develop their hitting and their pitching — two fundamental keys, and right here at Houck Park.”

The facility cost close to $500,000, but the benefit to the kids that practice there is priceless.

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“Something like this gives us the level playing field which we need, an up-north-of-the-border kind of thing,” said vice president of the Greater Niagara Baseball Association Richard Hollingsworth. “Like a facility like this, now with turf, we can be out here almost ten months of the year.”

“It’s pretty big,” said Marissa Stranges, who plays for the Niagara Falls Falcons. “It’s probably going to help a lot of teams improve throughout the year.”

Twelve-year-old catcher Channing Cupolo was eager to take a few swings in the new batting cages.

“I think this facility is going to help me improve as a player a lot, because it gives lots of opportunities — it’s way more space than the other one,” said Cupolo. “Batting cages are really nice and I think the community is really going to like it.”

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