The midget football players of the Bloomfield Rams don't want to give up Dean's Field, a patch of green below the Bloomfield Bridge that once cradled the black high-tops of gridiron great Johnny Unitas.
But a decision to permit only one sport to be played on the field has forced the Rams to use West Penn Field in Polish Hill -- a change that parents and coaches worry will diminish their ranks and hurt fundraising efforts.
"We want the program to be where it's been for 70 years," said Santo Policicchio, 59, head coach of Bloomfield Youth Football. "It's convenient, and the community here has always supported the team. We don't want to go to Polish Hill."
When the season started last weekend, the Pittsburgh Public Works Department, which manages the city's 128 fields, decided to permit only football and soccer at West Penn and to reserve Dean's Field for baseball and softball. Two other fields -- Quarry in the South Side Slopes and Chadwick in Lincoln-Lemington -- are restricted to football and soccer.
Some of the 35 children on the Rams, in grades 3 through 8, won't be able to walk to the new field, Policicchio said, and he's afraid business sponsors who have paid for equipment and uniforms will lose interest in the team.
A fundraiser at The Church Brew Works in April netted the team $6,000 and more than 800 people have signed a petition requesting the team be allowed to return to Dean's Field, both signs of wide neighborhood support, Policicchio said.
"They've been doing it here for so long, it's like a tradition," said Theresa Acker, 39, of Bloomfield. Her son, Keith, 10, is a fifth-grader at Immaculate Conception School and started to play left tackle for the Rams this year.
Acker works as a hair stylist, and her husband is a printer who often arrives home late. With access to only one car, Acker said it will be difficult to spend 30 minutes walking to Polish Hill as opposed to the two-minute trip she made with her son to Dean's Field on Ella Street.
"It's inconvenient, and I think it's going to dissuade a lot of people from allowing their children to join the team," Acker said.
Mike Gable, deputy director of Public Works, said the synthetic turf in Bloomfield is in dire need of repair.
The city has committed $300,000 to $350,000 to tear out the turf, plant grass, install dugouts and irrigate the land. That's most of the $450,000 available in the yearly public works budget earmarked for "park reconstruction." The work could begin by September -- once a contractor is chosen -- and could take six to eight months to complete.
Gable said Mayor Luke Ravenstahl approved the project.
As for the one-sport restriction. Gable said the decision conforms to a 2002 study of the city's fields by North Side-based Pashek Associates that recommended limiting each field to baseball, softball, soccer or football to give the grass time to grow between seasons.
"The premise that they're being forced to go play somewhere else is rather a knee-jerk response -- the field is being repaired," said Janet Cercone-Scullion, president of the Bloomfield Citizens Council, which lobbied Ravenstahl to improve the field.
Scullion said that once the field is repaired, she plans to "continue a dialogue" with the football group to see if they can return to Dean's Field, where Bloomfield's youth baseball and softball teams are guaranteed space to play.
She doesn't believe the Rams' relocation is a major problem because "we really only have one small group of little kids that play football."
City Councilman Bill Peduto, whose district includes some of Bloomfield but not the field, said he wasn't invited to an April meeting among Scullion, Ravenstahl, Gable, and the Rev. John Dinello, pastor of Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph Parish, which has many students on the Rams team.
Nor was the public invited, said Peduto, noting that a City Council public hearing residents demanded Aug. 9 happened after the city decided to restrict play on the fields.
"The people of Bloomfield should have had a chance to have their voices heard," Peduto said.
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