THEY BUILT IT, AND THEY CAME.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

MAPLETON YARDS - Kris Kahr picked up the tennis ball out of the middle of Providence Street on Saturday afternoon and wondered how it got there.

"I don't know where it came from," she said in her German accent as she examined the wet ball. "I think they're playing baseball over there," she said, pointing across the street to Mike and Mary Ann Donnelly's house near Sheldon High.

Suddenly, the sound of young men's voices came flying over the rooftop.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Just call it the Field of Screams. Especially when someone hits a towering home run over the maple tree and the Green Monster and into the neighbor's back yard.

It was Opening Day at Mapleton Yards - the makeshift baseball field that 18-year-old Joe Donnelly and his friends have built in the Donnellys' back yard - and Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey came to throw out the first pitch.

It hit the grass in front of home plate.

"That's my one-hop fastball," Torrey said, before giving it another try and landing that one in Joe Donnelly's mitt as 19 of his friends, all Marist High students, roared with approval.

Joe Donnelly and four of those friends, Alex Macke, Ryan Hill, Pat Brown and Pat Gesik, all seniors at Marist High, started building their very own Field of Dreams last summer. It has lights, one advertisement - for Blimpie sandwiches - yet to be nailed to the outfield fence, and seating for eight (five lawn chairs and three seats from Seattle's old Kingdome). Donnelly and his mother even hauled in a bunch of bark mulch to pretty the place up.

The Donnellys invited friends and their parents over for a barbecue Saturday to christen the new field, named after the large maple tree that sits smack dab in center field, where many would-be home runs go to die.

And what the heck was the mayor doing there?

Turns out that Torrey's grandson, Kyle Bjornstad, attends Marist. "We were looking for someone to throw out the first pitch, and we wanted to get someone as big as we could," explained Donnelly, who plans to attend Gonzaga University in Spokane this fall.

"We tried for Ichiro," joked Macke, referring to the Seattle Mariners' all-star outfielder.

Donnelly, whose doubles partner on the Marist tennis team is Macke, has been hitting home runs with tennis balls over the fence in his back yard since he was a kid, he said. He figures he's hit about 1,000.

Which doesn't always sit well with the older couple who live on Nirvana Street and whose back yard is on the other side of the Donnellys' Green Monster, a piece of plywood painted green that is nailed to the (left field) fence and sticks about five feet above it.

"I can't really blame them," Donnelly said of the neighbor's anger. "We put this up last year," he said, pointing to the Green Monster, which is named after the famous left field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play.

There's even a Red Sox pennant pinned to the Donnelly's Green Monster. "It's not very attractive on the other side," he said.

The neighbor's daughter and her young son end up picking tennis balls out of their yard. The daughter brought a grocery sack full of about 20 balls over one day and dropped them at Joe Donnelly's feet without saying a word.

"He likes us," Donnelly said of the neighbor, "but his wife thinks a ball could seriously injure a child."

He and his friends having been playing their own version of baseball since they were freshmen. That's a lot of tennis balls over the wall.

There are no bases on their field. They play three-on-three, and a hitter gets a single if he hits it past a white line just behind the pitcher's mound, which is 45 feet from home plate. Smacking the fence is a double. If you hit a small bulls-eye above the fence, which has only happened once, when Donnelly did it, it's a triple. And, of course, hitting it over the fence and into the neighbor's yard is a home run.

And there are only two outs, instead of three, every at bat. A game usually lasts seven innings.

"I think it's kind of cool," said Dave Hill, Ryan's dad, who observed the field for the first time Saturday. "They've put a lot of work into it, and it keeps them out of trouble."

Donnelly and his friends have divided into teams and they will play games in their own league through the end of the school year. They often show up for lunch during school days and get in four of five innings, Mary Ann Donnelly said.

Saturday's demonstration game, played after Torrey and all the players stood at attention, caps on hearts, and listened to both the Star-Spangled Banner and God Bless America, pitted Donnelly, Macke and Gesik against Hill, Brown and Tyler Norman. The latter group won 3-0 on Brown's three-run homer into the neighbor's yard.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!"

CAPTION(S):

Pat Gesik laughs after striking out during the inaugural baseball game on the ballfield Gesik and his Marist High School classmates helped construct in the back yard of his friend, Joe Donnelly. Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey was on hand to throw out the first pitch. Please turn to FIELD, Page D7 Field: Neighbor isn't too fond of home runs hit over the fence Continued from Page D1 Brian Davies / The Register-Guard Pat Brown hurls a pitch in the back yard-turned-ballfield of the Donnelly family on Saturday. A group of Marist High School students built the field and play a schedule of games. "I think it's kind of cool. They've put a lot of work into it, and it keeps them out of trouble." DAVE HILL FATHER OF ONE TEEN-AGE BALLPARK BUILDER