Play ball: Franklin Township dedicating field for Willy Walker
Provided by Danielle Kerr
Franklin Township is hosting a dedication ceremony for its newly named ballfield.
The ribbon-cutting for the Walker Field will take place at noon Saturday.
It’s being named for longtime township employee Willy Walker, who has mowed at the parks for 30-plus years and has been known as one of the better softball players in the county since his childhood, said board Chairman Corbly Orndorff. Walker also now serves as a township supervisor, where he was part of the group decision to make improvements at the park.
When the township brought it up to local softball organizations, their response was “That’s perfect,” Orndorff said.
“It was one of those ideas that honestly has pretty much been, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t thought of this sooner,” he said.
The upgrades at Crawford Park came out of a comprehensive plan the township completed in 2020. One of the needs identified by the township was improving residents’ quality of life through recreational opportunities.
“It’s been a joint effort in the township, and a unanimous effort,” Orndorff said. “We’ve all been very supportive and very positive to push this thing forward.”
Concession stand upgrades and a new playground came in 2024. This year, the park added a second softball field and a pickleball court. The improvements came from more than $600,000 in Department of Conservation and Natural Resources grants, paired with matching funds from the township.
Before those improvements, the original field had always been known as the Crawford Field, Orndorff said.
The new field was already dedicated earlier this year in honor of Danny Ed Humble, a longtime figure in the softball community. That left the original field.
“Now that we have a pickleball facility there, batting cages for softball, the playground that has been expanded and upgraded, it makes sense that the entire facility is Crawford Park. And the softball field needed a different name, not just Crawford Field.”
As township workers have been doing touch-up work like painting lines in the parking lot, they’ve been hearing from residents enthused about the park’s new look, Orndorff said.
Saturday’s ceremony will be held in conjunction with the Smash Fastpitch Softball team and the Waynesburg Girls Youth Association.
“It’s kind of welcoming people to come out and celebrate and appreciate Willy’s lifelong dedication to softball, and then Franklin Township’s investment in the park,” Orndorff said.
One of the guests will be Humble’s daughter and the founder of Smash, Danielle Kerr. Walker had been one of the figures present when a field was dedicated for Humble.
Humble, a star at Central Greene High School, had been drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 1971.
He died of pancreatic cancer when Danielle was 4. The family’s done fundraisers for the past 16 years to help cancer patients pay their bill.
Her family’s been fundraising for the field since 2018. Thanks to the township, they had a perfect place to put it, she said.
“Nothing was really working out for us, but several of the township guys knew my dad, and played ball with him when he was younger, so this was kind of a perfect location,” she said.
Walker, a friend of her father’s who’d played ball with him, had thrown out the first pitch on Humble Field.
“He was heavily involved in helping us get that field up and running,” Kerr said. “He’s a great guy.”