Published: March 11, 2008 10:07 am      

Cave of dreams: Winter sends baseball underground

JOPLIN, Mo. — Professional baseball teams each year go to the warm and sunny climates of Florida and Arizona for spring training.

Until now, it’s been difficult for area players to find a place to get ready for their baseball season, especially when it’s 30 degrees and the local diamond is covered with an icy glaze.

This year, that need is being filled by the Cave of Dreams Baseball Center, an underground practice area on Newman Road just north of Missouri Southern State University. Local players can practice hitting, pitching and other skills in a 15-acre underground space that’s dry and 65 degrees year round.

The center was started by David Riesenmy, a Joplin attorney and Little League coach, and Steve Luebber, a former major leaguer who is the pitching coach for the Kansas City Royals’ Class A team in Wilmington, Del.

They showcased the center in an open house Dec. 30, and since then, Riesenmy said, the only challenge has been scheduling.

“It’s basically booked seven days a week,” he said.

Riesenmy said baseball teams at Missouri Southern, Ozark Christian College, and College Heights and McAuley Catholic high schools train at the center, which also is used for clinics and individual coaching by Luebber, and by college and high-school coaches from throughout the region.

“It’s been a godsend for kids in this area,” said Denny Vilela, assistant baseball coach at Labette Community College in Parsons, Kan., and head coach of the Joplin Slashers baseball team.

“You go to the bigger cities, and they’ve all got indoor academies where kids can go to hit and practice. So this has been just a huge plus for the young players, and even the college players, in our area.”

Vilela said he has been working with several players individually and in camps at the center for the past six weeks.

“I’m already seeing a lot of improvement in them, and we wouldn’t have been able to start until spring,” he said.

Not all of the 15-acre space is being used, Riesenmy said.

The center includes two long batting tunnels with pitching machines, a soft-toss cage, two clay pitcher’s mounds and two portable mounds, and open areas for practicing other skills.

The center has allowed practice to go on despite snow and ice, and Riesenmy said it will be kept year round if the demand is there.

“I know there have been times I coached teams on muddy fields or in 100-degree weather and wished we had someplace else to go,” he said.

Riesenmy said he played Little League baseball in Joplin as a youngster, and in 1993, his brother asked him to help coach his son’s T-ball team.

“Every year since then, I’ve coached somebody,” he said. “Last year, I was one of the coaches that took the Webb City 15- and 16-year-old team to the Dizzy Dean World Series.”

He said the competition was held in South Haven, Miss., at a complex that included 18 baseball fields and an indoor complex.

“I couldn’t quite get why Joplin couldn’t have something like that,” he said.

Riesenmy said he learned about the underground space when it was used for paintball and he went there with his 16-year-old son.

“I started thinking, ‘Why not there?’” he said. “I started talking to the landlord, and in about August, we finally came to an agreement.”

Riesenmy said he had sponsored a high school Key Club that included Carly Luebber, Steve Luebber’s daughter.

When the professional baseball season is over, Luebber returns to Joplin and works with pitchers from local high schools and MSSU. But previously, finding practice space had been a challenge.

“I told her (Luebber’s daughter) what I was working on and asked if she thought he’d be interested,” Riesenmy said. “He called me within an hour. I went out and saw him in Arizona where he was coaching fall ball, and we finalized the deal. He started giving lessons right away, and we opened to the public on Jan. 2.”