Field of Dreams, Field of Vision
By David Wilkening
Photos courtesy of The Diamondbacks
Going to an Arcadia Little League game to see his 11-year-old son, Cal, play second base (good fielder, good hitter, all-around solid player) can be an added incentive for E.G. (Ken) Kendrick: Kendrick’s company may have financed and built the playing field.
Kendrick is managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and a longtime baseball fan. He is also chairman of the team’s foundation, which has built or refurbished 26 baseball fields as part of their “Diamonds Back” Youth Field Building Program.
In September, the foundation unveiled an ambitious four-field cluster that is a first in the state.
“The Complex in the North Valley has something no other youth complex in Arizona has: TotTurf,” says Ashley Engler, a senior account executive with the Lavidge Company, which represents the D-Backs. “It literally levels the playing field for children who use wheelchairs or walkers.”
The playing surface for two of the fields is regulation Little League. But the other two fields are adapted for disabled young players. They are somewhat smaller than a regulation field, and their playing surface is made entirely of TotTurf, a rubber material that is more forgiving and conducive to wheelchair and walker use.
“We have quite a few people in our valley who are wheelchair bound and play baseball,” says Kendrick. Prior to the introduction of these fields, young athletes who use wheelchairs or walkers had to struggle to navigate the dirt and grass fields, or not play at all.
The intent of the complex, Kendrick says, is for disabled children to have a safe place to play. The new fields are also designed to encourage children with and without disabilities to play together and learn more about one another’s lives.
Typically, ball fields built by the major league baseball team in conjunction with other organizations cost about $300,000. But these four fields are an investment of upward of $3 million. “This was a much more expensive proposition, in part because we had a lot of extra things, like concessions,” Kendrick says, explaining that the additional components are necessary for hosting national tournaments.
The new complex is a real team effort that involves contributions from everyone from the U.S. government to individual players. Several organizations have already committed to using the complex. They include Special Olympics Arizona, the Mesa Association of Sports for the Disabled (MASD), the Life Challenge, and the Valley of the Sun School and Habilitation Center. Other partners who helped fund the complex either through contributions or in-kind support included the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, who is the actual owner of the land; the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust; the Baseball Tomorrow Fund; Thunderbirds Charities; APS; and Summit Builders.
Kendrick himself is a longtime philanthropist. He believes that his attitude toward charitable causes dates back to growing up in the small West Virginia town of Princeton, where his father was involved in doing charitable work. Perhaps this explains why Kendrick, while working for Datatel shortly after college, started a Datatel Scholars Foundation, which provides college scholarships for students throughout the United States and Canada.
The town’s 10,000 residents, he says, had baseball fever, and Kendrick was a decent player himself. “I even played semipro for a while, but I was certainly not a professional player,” he says. Kendrick never lost this “baseball fever.” As a charter member of the ownership group that brought baseball to Arizona, he became the managing general partner in 2004; he now represents the ownership group in the day-to-day operation, and serves as the team’s representative during the yearly major league baseball owners meeting.
Through the Diamondbacks, Kendrick found a way to combine his love for baseball with his love for charity work. In his work at the Diamondbacks Foundation, Kendrick is part of a thirteen-person board of directors that has donated more than $10 million in the past decade to nonprofit and charitable organizations throughout the state. Funds for the foundation are raised through events such as “Evening on the Diamond” and “Shirts Off Our D-Backs.”
Because the organization operates with no overhead costs, all its funds go directly to benefit community programs. Between 2005 and 2006, the foundation contributed funds to seventy-two charities that included Helping Hands, Housing Services, and the West Valley Child Crisis Center.
It’s not all work, however. Kendrick’s seat at the stadium overlooks the team’s dugout, and he said that he goes to quite a few of the games. This year, that number may exceed fifty.
Ken Kendrick’s position with the Diamondbacks has allowed his charity work to also extend beyond the realm of the team. He also owns the Bumble Bee Ranch, which includes more than 74,000 acres for horseback riding, cattle driving, helicopter tours, and overnight facilities. “Ken not only regularly gives dollars but also his time, and he donates his ranch throughout the summer to children’s charities who might not be able to afford overnight camps,” says Engler.
Kendrick is not sure where the next ball field will be built, but he says that there won’t be any slowdown in “Diamonds Back,” which is a priority for the team.
Those who know him say that Kendrick quietly balances his roles as team owner, charitable-giver, successful entrepreneur, father to Cal and Catie (and husband to wife Randy), and hard-core baseball fan. However, he does admit to one small irritant in his life: his son’s little league teams are all named after major league teams, and the youngster plays for the “Chicago Cubs.”
“Sometimes, it’s pretty hard to live with,” Kendrick says.