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Wes Sukosky maintained Central Field for 12 years before he was offered part-time pay.
“This was all dirt. Weeds. Trees – not the beautiful kind,” says his son, Jonathan Sukosky, surveying the pristine field and practice area at 529 Mayss Street in Globe.
Today he is Head Groundskeeper for the Globe Unified School District, and Central Field in Globe has been named Field of the Year in 3A South Central for four consecutive years.
As a high schooler, Jonathan and his father and a few ballplayers would come to Central Field on Saturdays and work together to maintain it.
“He initiated a lot of pride in us, in what we had, so that’s why we’d all take care of it,” Jonathan says.
There’s a lot about the field that makes it special. The history. The minor league ties. All the guys that stood on this dirt. Tucked inside a neighborhood, it’s got a view of the Copper Hills and diamond-shaped clay around home plate.
Last year, Central Field received national notoriety with a Pioneer Athletics Field of Excellence award.
“To me, that’s awesome,” says Jonathan. “It’s going to be the best thing because it was the last thing we did together.”
Wes Sukosky died on December 29, 2024, at age 57.
To honor his father’s contribution to the community of baseball and, specifically, Central Field, Jonathan designed a Wes logo and will paint it on the grass behind home plate throughout the 2025 season.
A Boy and His Dad
Jonathan, 27, was about 10 years old, playing Little League baseball, when he first started going to work on the fields with his father. Every other weekend.
“He would mow and I would go around with a tool called a hula-hoe to maintain the edges.”
In 2015, Wes was given the opportunity to host two Little League state tournaments. For two weeks straight, the father-son team arrived at the field early. They set the field up. Lined it. Prepared the clay, the pitcher’s mound and home plate. During that two weeks, a lot of games were played. Jonathan remembers the exact number of home runs by the 11-12 All Stars: 85.
Even after Jonathan grew up and moved to the valley, he came up on weekends to help his father with the baseball fields. In 2022, Jonathan moved back to Globe. Wes was then head coach of the Globe High School baseball team.
“This was the best two years of my life,” says Jonathan, “getting to work side-by-side with him.”
Together they brought the field expectations up; they took classes, and tried new things. Jonathan helped Wes with other fields as well – the varsity field in Miami and the Noftsger and Hagen fields for the City of Globe.
Wes liked a manicured lawn. He was a perfectionist, according to his son, and had a comment about everything. When they experimented with painting their first logo onto the grass, Wes brought along green paint to touch up any mistakes.
Darryl Dalley, a longtime friend of Wes, observed first-hand how Wes taught his son.
“He’s going to take over his Dad’s legacy, which is great,” Darryl says.
Legacy of a Longtime Volunteer
“He thought the kids of Globe and Miami deserved better,” says Jonathan.
Wes began volunteering for Pinal Mountain Little League in the early 2000s. He contributed as a pitching coach, equipment manager and ultimately, as board president. That’s when a lot of changes happened, his son recalls, and the renovation of the ball fields began.
“It was time to stop playing on a dirt field,” says Darryl.
Darryl hired Wes to do a home inspection, and by the time the business was completed, the two were friends. Wes talked Darryl into coaching a Little League team of 15 kids and later, joining the board.
Wes secured funding for the boys’ field (the old O’Brian Park). Contributions from the local mines and businesses and even the Diamondbacks supported the effort that today is known as the Pinal Mountain Little League Sports Complex.
“Everyone knew Wes,” says Darryl. “Everybody loved Wes.”
Working five nights a week, they replaced the prickly goat heads with green fields, took out all the dirt, knocked down the fence, brought in new sod, installed irrigation, and relocated home plate to its original location.
“I’ve been in the army, and I’ve been around the world, but to have a friend like Wes, I was so lucky. It was not just the Little League but his work in Miami.”
When the town of Miami needed a code enforcement guy, they hired Wes. From there he became an inspector and finally public works director. All while running a business and raising a family.
“His wife deserves a lot of credit,” says Darryl, “for all the time he spent away from the house.”
Multi-Generational Team Pride
Central Field was home to the Globe Bears, a class D minor league team from 1929-1931. The earliest documented game was played on the Fourth of July, 1891. The corner field and grandstands were also used for baseball and football, wrestling and rodeos. Today, the south-facing grandstand is now used for conditioning drills. Locker rooms stand on the old home plate. In 2008 they fenced off “Coffin Corner,” bringing the boundary in 30 feet closer.
“Eliminated a lot of triples. Made it more home-run friendly,” remarks Kyle Wagner, head baseball coach for the GHS Tigers.
It’s a Friday in late February, and field preparations are well underway for an afternoon practice game. Coach Wagner is helping out. He was a GHS player (2004-2007); so was his father. This is Kyle’s first year at the helm, but he’s been coaching kids since his son (now a freshman) was in Little League, and works full-time as an electrician.
What you get out of baseball, Coach Wagner says, applies to life in general.
“Take pride in something that you do. Being disciplined, dealing with adversity.”
The work ethic is evident in the kids, he says, and in the field – how the pitchers rake the mound and players arrive early to get extra work in. Corban Bejarano, catcher for the Globe Tigers, is there early to help with the prep. His grandfather played on this field in 1904. His grandmother still lives in a house behind left field.
Two hours before game time, the batter’s box has been painted on the clay on both sides of home plate. The baselines are painted on the grass. The ‘infield skin’ has been hosed down, matt-dragged and hosed again. Jonathan demonstrates the hula-hoe, a critical tool for baseball field maintenance, and James Reede, assistant coach, uses a square edged “spoon” to scoop out the dirt from the holes that hold the bases in place. A young daughter looks on. It’s easy to imagine the next generation already starting to take part in the next decade of this community tradition.
A traveler, Patti Daley came to Globe in 2016 to face the heat, follow love, and find desert treasure. She writes in many formats and records travel scraps and other musings at daleywriting.com.
