More good news for the region’s first fully accessible baseball diamond.
The City of Cambridge has announced it will be receiving $171,659 as part of the Jays Care Foundation’s 2026 Field of Dreams grant program.
This money will be used to aid the renovations to the Kin 1 Baseball Diamond at Kinsman Stadium in Riverside Park underway. The renovations include new pathways, an artificial turf infield, accessible and covered dugouts, new accessible washrooms, as well as better bleachers for fans.
The Jays Care announcement comes after the Lyle S. Hallman Foundation donated $500,000 to the project in May of this year. After the City of Cambridge agreed to fund the project to the tune of $ 3 million last July, through debt.
Cam Linwood, Senior Manager, Challenger Baseball, Jays Care Foundation, is also the founder of Buddy League, an adaptive baseball program in Cambridge.
He told 570 NewsRadio that he was unsure how the Jays Care selection process would unfold, and it was an amazing surprise for the families when the announcement was made.
“You really got to see what it meant to our families to have something that was built and designed specifically with all of their needs in mind. The reality is that it’s a place that they can truly call theirs and we can really call our home field,” said Linwood.
He went on to say it’s been a long road to get to this point, but it really couldn’t have come at a better time.
“The program (Buddy League) has grown significantly year over year since we started eight years ago. When we first got going, we had about 30 athletes on the field. Now we’re north of 130 athletes, and really, at this point, while the field is being built, we’re a little bit constrained. We need more space to grow, and this field will give us that.”
One of a kind
Once completed, the field will be the first fully accessible and inclusive ball diamond in the region.
“Hopefully not the last in the region, though,” said Linwood. “We’re really hoping this field becomes a model of what inclusive and accessible fields look like.”
Linwood emphasized that just because the diamond is being designed with accessibility in mind, that doesn’t mean it will be off limits to the general public: “The reality is that anybody can still use it. That’s the best part of a field like this; it still is a community field.”
Linwood expects the field will be made available for reservation at some point.
Construction is underway. The hope is the work is done before the end of the baseball season.