Parks and Rec to rethink expansion plans for Middleburg’s Mickie Gordon Park

By Laura Longley

On June 29, at the Middleburg American Legion Hall, a standing-room-only crowd of residents, officials, conservation leaders, and Loudoun County Cricket League members gathered to hear Loudoun Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Director Steve Torpy explain plans to develop passive 100-acre Mickie Gordon Memorial Park into a three-field championship cricket complex.

The audience also wanted to learn why, as park neighbor David Blanchard asked, this community meeting was just happening now. “This should have been the first thing because now we’ve got this entire cricket community excited about something that we’re getting upset about. And we’re upset because this special exception came through without public input. Lord knows how much money you’ve spent to this point, and now we’ve got a situation where we’re violating the dark skies policy, we’re violating the traffic calming work. You should pull this exception.”

“Obviously,” Torpy acknowledged, “based on the number of people who are here, the number of emails we’ve seen, the signs that I pass every day when I’m commuting to work, I missed the mark on this one, and that’s why we paused, and I want to come back and make sure we get this right.”

It’s not about cricket

It’s not about cricket one speaker after another emphasized, it’s about location and intensity. It’s about the quiet and peacefulness of this rural area, the dark skies, gravel roads, and abundant wildlife and why it cannot handle three 450-foot-diameter fields ringed with 18 100-foot-tall light towers, plus bleachers, concessions building, press box, rest rooms, parking for up to 200 cars, and a turn lane that would widen Rt 50, a nationally acclaimed model of traffic calming. And, while residents agreed that cricket is booming in Loudoun and the leagues need more fields, the proposed changes would erase the park’s deep African American and Babe Ruth League baseball heritage.

Torpy addressed that heritage first at the conclusion of a Power Point presentation by a Timmons Group civil engineer. The Parks and Rec director took back the microphone and turned to a guest, 94-year-old Asbury Lloyd. “Before opening the floor for questions, I do want to start out by giving this gentleman the opportunity to speak first tonight.” 

African American heritage 

Lloyd’s daughter Regina introduced her father, who was sitting in a wheelchair wearing his Korean War Veteran’s hat.  “My father pitched many a game in that field. I played softball in that field. He coached for a Little League team, for the teenage guys, and for the older men,” and she handed the mic to him.

“We always looked forward to holidays there – Memorial Day, 4^th of July, Labor Day,” Lloyd said. “We had kind of a field day—horse races, ball games, dancing. At that time, we didn’t have many places that we could go for fun. I used to walk from Philomont to Macsville to the ballfield. You could get a 98-cent baseball, and any kind of stick would do for a bat. Baseball was my game. I liked to play it, and I liked to see other people play it. Let’s fix this park and let’s play ball.”

“Mickie Gordon Park was once Mercer Park and also Hall’s Field where my family’s ancestors were part of that,” said Carla Hall. “I remember as a child going there for the events. That’s history lost if we do away with this park. I beg to differ that the park hasn’t been used. Last year, the Halls had a large family reunion there.”

Debbie Gordon Schleith spoke up: “My father was Mickie Gordon. I feel like there are many of you who haven’t been in Middleburg long enough to know the history of the park named for my father and the baseball field dedicated to my grandfather, Pop Gordon. My father started a Babe Ruth team in the mid 1960s and coached that team until the ‘80s. He also was a longtime member of the Loudoun County Parks and Recreation board.” 

Gordon went on to explain her dad’s role in bringing the first Babe Ruth World Series to Loudon at Fireman’s Field in Purcellville. “That was one of the last things he worked to get done before he passed away in ’96. So, if this goes through and there’s no longer a baseball field there, then it’s not Pop Gordon Field anymore and it’s not Mickie Gordon Park, and I’d want the plaque removed and the sign removed because it’s no longer my family’s legacy.”

Lights, roads, traffic, and economic impact

John Rizik, whose property adjoining Mickie Gordon Memorial Park has been designated an African American Historical Site, admitted that “living next to the park is not all peaches and cream. The current light situation is invasive; it lights up my whole yard like Dulles Airport.” His neighbor raised concerns about the backroads. “I can tell you that cars from Snickersville Pike going over to Mickie Gordon Park come zipping down Carters Farm Lane where people are out walking jogging, bicycling, and riding their horses.”

David Greenhill, owner of Greenhill Vineyards located directly across the road from the project, pointed out that Rt. 50 couldn’t support the traffic. “It’s already backed up enough as it is. It’s not so much the park’s existence but the construction alone. How long is that going to take—a year, two? Rt. 50 is going to be a mess. It’s already the main artery from Gilberts Corner at 15 all the way to Winchester. 

“The economic impact needs to be assessed,” Greenhill went on, “because if there are fewer people coming to Middleburg, it’s going to affect us negatively. It would decimate my business.”

Tia Earman, Piedmont Environmental Council field representative, asked what attention had been paid to the Countywide Transportation Plan. “This stretch of Rt. 50 is called out by name in the CTP. It’s highlighted as a National Historic Roadway District in the lead up to Middleburg, and in the CTP the County pledges to work with the Town of Middleburg to preserve the historic nature of their entrance corridor. That is county policy.”

Childs Burden, a resident of Loudoun since 1975, reminded the group of the $35 million grassroots effort to traffic calm this historic corridor from Mt. Zion Church all the way up to Ashby’s Gap past Upperville. “We have gotten national recognition for that. Loudoun County has completely bought into that,” he said. “But now we’re talking about widening Rt 50 and bringing in more traffic.” Burden recalled another campaign in the 1990s to stop Disney’s America theme park near the Manassas Battlefield. “We came up with the slogan ‘Think again, Disney.’ How about ‘Think again, Parks and Rec.’”

Needed: A new drawing board

Megan Gallagher, a conservation activist, offered three asks she believes the community would support:

“The first is, you pull this special exception. It’s an urban park in a rural area, and you’ll never convince the community to support it. Two, you find room in the urban parks you’re already building or the new ones you’re planning where the infrastructure exists closer to the players and where they actually live, and you put that on a fast track, but give up the idea of a three-field championship complex out in a rural area. And three, you come back in the fall when we’re rested and over this and you talk to the community about passive parks with active features that reflect their historic uses. We haven’t seen or even captured this park’s value to multiple constituencies.”

Mayor Bridge Littleton agreed, emphasizing the importance of a win-win and the county’s capacity to deliver one. “I’ll never accept that this is a question about money. With a $4 billion annual budget, whatever it costs to put the right types of cricket facilities near the players to meet their needs, we can pay for it. I totally respect why the cricket players want this to happen because there’s nothing else on the drawing board. We need to have a new drawing board.”