A very foul ball

The Crowfield kids were out at the old ballpark Saturday, playing catch and hitting a few -- nothing like the crack of a bat to chase away the winter.

For nearly two decades, hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of Berkeley County kids have practiced this most American tradition on a few modest ball fields off College Park Road.

The Steve Vaughn Sports Complex -- and calling it a "complex" is a stretch -- is not a fancy place. The dugouts are homemade, there's no running water, and the bleachers are long past their glory days.

Even the fences are second-hand, taken off the former Navy base.

Basically, the Crowfield Cobras play ball on a utility easement, 14 acres where power lines hover over future power hitters.

This is not a county rec league; there's no official help. But this old sandlot has served the purpose, mainly because of the work and sweat and money put into it by parents who mow the grass, coach the teams and sell the concessions.

There's only one thing that keeps this from being a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Berkeley County is about to tax this Little League right out of existence.

A little chin music

It's a story more complicated than ciphering slugging percentages.

In 1994, local builder Steve Vaughn told the residents at Crowfield, who had lost their neighborhood field, their kids could play on his College Park Road property, so long as they paid the property taxes.

At the time, that amounted to about $350 a year.

The Little League is nonprofit, and pays its expenses entirely from modest registration fees, concessions and the rare sponsorship. For a while, it was enough to cover the taxes.

But in 2002, Berkeley County officials who were out surveying for a reassessment found the ballpark on Vaughn's land, which at the time was zoned for agricultural use. They determined that the ballpark was commercial use, and changed its status.

Because of that the tax bill jumped to $1,916. Two years later the reassessment kicked in and the tax bill went up to $5,146. Last year it was $5,761 -- a little much for an organization that is lucky to finish the year with $100 in the bank.

"It's to the point that this is not going to be around much longer," says Steve Ulery, whose son Zachary has been playing ball there for three years. "They can find a way to help Boeing or Google but not a bunch of kids?"

Strike two

Wilson Baggett, the county's assessor, is not unsympathetic -- his son plays ball too -- but says his hands are tied.

He says he can't do anything for the Little League because it doesn't own the property. It is property in private hands, under a rental agreement. That is commercial use.

The deal between Vaughn and the league, Baggett says, "is just like any other rental agreement. If you have a dance studio renting on College Park Road, it's the same thing. We have to treat them both the same."

Some parents, particularly Ulery, have tried to fight the county, looking for a tax break, an exemption for the nonprofit, but they've had no luck. A few officials have gotten downright testy, he says. Others have said the kids should trudge up to Moncks Corner to play ball.

Vaughn has argued with county officials that the land's use hasn't changed, that there have been no real improvements for the county to tax.

"They say they have to tax at best use. Well, if I owned the Burger King down the road I could tear it down and build a drug store. Does that mean you tax Burger King like it's a drug store?" Vaughn argued.

"It makes no sense to tax those kids off the property. Government should be about helping people, not hurting them."

Some state lawmakers have expressed an interest in doing something, but they know that could open a whole can of worms -- groups would come out of the woodwork looking for exemptions.

But if no one steps in, this could be the end of the line for a local tradition.

It's a shame. A group of parents got together, found a way to provide a service the county did not. And now, because of red tape and rigid laws, the county might effectively shut them down.

"We didn't want to be in this position," says Jim Emig, president of the league. "It just seems like there's something wrong with this picture."

There sure is. Because if the league packs up the bags, and shutters the concession stand, the taxes on the property will go back down to $350.

And the only discernible difference would be the absence of that crack of a bat on a warm summer night.