Ever noticed how there’s limited indoor training space in Forest Park for baseball and softball come the harsh Chicago winter? Well, that’s changed with the opening of Prime Athletic Club, which provides 11,000 square feet for baseball and softball practice, clinics and camps where there was once a T-shirt factory at 1401 Circle Ave.
Hundreds of locals attended Prime Athletic Club’s ribbon cutting on June 30 to get a first look at the 70-by-56-foot turf infield, 70-foot-long retractable batting cages and a small area for strength and conditioning covering half the facility. Prime Athletic Club is hosting tryouts this week for its own baseball and softball teams for 8-year-olds to high schoolers. They will offer camps and clinics throughout the year.
Four local owners – Scott DiGrazia of Chicago, Mike Ernst of Forest Park, Brian Straw of Oak Park and Dan Anderegg of River Forest – launched Prime Athletic Club to add more off-season skill development in and around Forest Park.
Victory Sports Club opened last summer next to Play it Again Sports with space for batting and pitching practice, plus a work out area.
“This area is short on facilities for baseball and softball and, in the area as a whole, I think it’s short on player development and building athletes into young men and women outside of the sport,” DiGrazia said. “That’s our goal – is not just to make a good athlete, but to make a good person.”
Prime Athletic Club is much more than a training space to its owners, who aim to teach lessons that go beyond the field.
It’s a vision that started when DiGrazia and Anderegg launched Prime Mental Performance, which offers mental training for athletes, coaches and parents through an online academy, in-person clinics and one-on-one sessions.
“We definitely envision the space as a baseball and softball academy first,” Straw said. But it’s also a place to develop athletes’ mental performance. “Baseball is a sport where, even if you’re doing well, you’re still failing more than half the time when you get up to bat.”
The batting average in Major League Baseball, for example, is around .250, meaning a batter gets a hit 25% of the time they’re at bat.
“I want to help people with how to handle failure,” said Ernst, who met DiGrazia and Straw through the club baseball team that their sons play on and DiGrazia coaches. “I saw it with my own son, how he performed before he started playing on Scott’s team and after, and the sizable difference in what that allowed him to do competitively speaking, as well as just being around him. I want that for other people as well.”
Prime Mental Performance will be based out of the same building as Prime Athletic Club, and its offerings will be woven into the club’s programming.
For example, DiGrazia’s club baseball team has started every practice so far this year with a “mental minute,” where they discuss one thing for players to think about throughout practice, like confidence.
“Our team alone has seen a dramatic increase in their mental capacity. They’re doing phenomenal this year with their mental toughness,” DiGrazia said.
But the mental training is for more than just the players. Straw said he’s excited to see how it benefits parents.
“When you’re at any sports field, sometimes there are some parents, and the way they interact with the game is actually making it more difficult for the child to perform,” Straw said. “Instead of going onto the field ready to perform, they’re walking onto the field looking to not mess up. If you’re approaching anything from a place of fear instead of from a place of opportunity, it’s harder to perform.”
On the open half of Prime Athletic Club, the owners are looking to put more batting cages, though that likely won’t be until the end of the year. They also want to add technology that will record biometrics for athletes.
The owners plan to work with recreational programs in the area, like Oak Park Youth Baseball and Softball and other local little league teams. Though Prime Athletic Club is across the hall from the Oak Park Windmills travel softball practice space, the owners say they hope to share resources with each other through their new community gathering space.
“One of the things that we’re really well positioned to do is be a part of a bunch of different communities that love baseball and softball,” said Straw, fostering a love for the sports where nearby neighborhoods can feel siloed. “We’re recognizing that the world doesn’t stop at Harlem, the world doesn’t stop at Roosevelt. Our community goes beyond these artificial borders.”
While creating community at Prime Athletic Club, DiGrazia said he wants athletes who visit the space to learn good work ethics.
“They could be great ball players, they could be average ball players, but they should step out of here and be able to go be a leader somewhere,” DiGrazia said.
Correction, July 10, 12:30 p.m.: A previous version of this article neglected to include Victory Sports Club as an indoor training option in Forest Park. We apologize for the error.