Long Beach athletes looking forward to new fieldhouse

A new Long Beach fieldhouse could give hundreds of athletes more opportunities to train.

McKenna Klamm with the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center explains how local teams could benefit.

When Dustin Clark and his wife went looking for a place where their son could practice batting indoors, he says finding an open cage wasn’t always easy. “That was another thing we had heard from some of the other baseball parents here in Long Beach and in the surrounding communities was that some of those facilities are just too busy to even get in and rent a cage.”

That led him to transform the former Tuesday Morning store at Pineville Plaza into Long Beach Fieldhouse.

The 22,000-square-foot facility will have indoor batting cages, three pickleball courts and space for other sports.

Destin Guillot is president of the Long Beach Youth Baseball Association. He says they have more than 550 players each spring and having an indoor facility would be a big help. “It provides more reps, more realistic type training. It gives the kids the opportunity to train under multiple individuals rather than just a specific coach.”

The league plans to buy a membership for indoor practices, especially on rainy days. “When it rains, we’re kind of limited on where we can go because we can’t use the fields, things like that. We don’t want to tear them up.”

Long Beach Fieldhouse is set to open December 19. Visitors can use the facility for free then with donations going toward registration fees for local youth baseball and softball players.