2 leagues bickering over which will operate new cricket facility

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

A multi-million-dollar cricket facility is in the works in Schenectady — if the cricket leagues can stop bickering long enough to make it happen.

For now, the two leagues aren’t even speaking to each other, except to launch accusations of corruption and power-mongering.

Both the Guyanese-American Association of Schenectady (GAAS) and the Schenectady Softball Cricket Association (SSCA) want to control the new facility, which would be built at Grout Park on Hamburg Street. Neither is willing to trust the other to run it.

The SSCA prides itself on being the place for true athletes. Its players accuse GAAS of using cricket in an effort to unite the Guyanese community and thus provide a platform for political campaigns.

GAAS officials say their group is better organized and thus better prepared to run a cricket facility.

“We’re going to have a management team for the park,” Guyanese-American Association of Schenectady President John Mootooveren said confidently. “Then we can be one big league.”

But one member of his cricket committee inadvertently agreed with the SSCA’s suspicions.

“It’s much more big than cricket,” said Milton Kissoon, calling the cricket facility a valuable organizing opportunity because it would draw hundreds of Guyanese. “You’ve got to start somewhere. … From there you can get the Guyanese involved. We can get representation.”

Onkar Singh, who runs the Schenectady Softball Cricket Association, is disgusted by such motives.

“We’re doing a sport,” he said, adding that his rivals play a far too relaxed version of the game.

“They cook food and they play cricket and drink beer,” he complained. “My whole focus is cricket, not beer drinking.”

The city is caught in the middle. Workers intend to build one cricket field at Grout Park next year, under a plan that calls for a nonprofit cricket group to raise money for the rest of the facility.

But if the leagues can’t get along, the rest of the facility will never be built, Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen said bluntly.

“They have to get their act together,” he said. “The facility would be millions of dollars. Obviously the city doesn’t have the money to invest in that. The city can barely afford to maintain the parks that it has.”

The city is willing to apply for grants, design a master plan for the land and build the first field. It would then lease the park to a nonprofit that would raise money for the rest of the facility.

“A nonprofit gives you additional means of garnering funding,” Olsen said.

On the surface, the plan seems simple: set up the nonprofit and begin fundraising. GAAS already has nonprofit status, making it relatively simple to start raising money.

But Singh utterly refuses to deal with Mootooveren’s group.

“The city has to run it,” Singh said. “You’re telling me when GAAS is given the monopoly of that park, we’ll be able to play there? GAAS says they’re looking after the interests of the Guyanese community, but it’s not that. They’re for personal gain. They will be in control of cricket. It’s all about power.”

Mootooveren disagreed, saying it is only sensible to let GAAS run the facility since it’s a nonprofit.

Kissoon has now offered a compromise: GAAS could let a cricket committee, made up of representatives from both groups, run the facility.

“This is what I think should be done. Form a committee with people on both sides,” he said, adding that all teams will benefit from a larger league. “They should all be united. Ultimately it will be more competitive.”

Making matters more complicated, there is one cricket team in the city that isn’t affiliated with either group. The Tri-City Cricket Club, which has been playing hardball cricket here for decades, is the longest-running team in the city. It accepts players from all around the Capital Region.

Team leaders are in favor of joining a united league with equal representation. But even they don’t trust GAAS to run it alone.

“Somebody from our organization has to be part of the decision-making process,” said Tri-City Cricket Club President Steven Weisse. “I’m not willing to say we’ll hand GAAS a lot of money and hope they run it right.”

But the SSCA isn’t willing to discuss creating a joint operating committee.

County Legislator Philip Fields, D-Schenectady, has been trying to get them to talk to each other, with little success.

“You have all these dominating personalities,” he said.

He’s convinced that the issue goes deeper than simply finding an acceptable compromise. “It requires personality change and humility.”