The shouts, cracks and cheers of summer baseball, absent from the grounds of Union Catholic Regional High School for more than a month, will return to the Scotch Plains school on Wednesday, vice principal and assistant coach Jim Reagan said. Sounds, however, can be deceiving.  Ruling that "there is an imminent harm, an imminent danger of foul balls landing” in neighbors’ yards “on a near daily basis,” Union County Superior Court Judge John Malone issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that both extends and modifies a temporary restraining order he granted June 8, which prohibited Union …

Union County Superior Court Judge John Malone issued a preliminary injunction against Union Catholic Regional High School on Tuesday. The order both extends and modifies a temporary restraining order he granted June 8 that prohibited the Scotch Plains school from playing or permitting baseball games on the field it renovated in 2009.  The restraining orders follow a lawsuit filed by Rajul and Sachin Shah, of 4 Dutch Lane, represented by attorney Marc Rogoff, who allege that since the field was renovated more baseballs than ever before have been flying into their backyard, threatening their …

A $1.3 million renovation of the athletic fields at Union Catholic Regional High School that has caused 25 months of acrimony among residents, launching a neighborly dispute into a legal battle – and banning baseball there in the meantime – could potentially be resolved for about $4,000.   Residents of Black Birch Road and Dutch Lane, whose homes abut the baseball field’s first- and third-baselines, allege that since the new field opened April 1, 2010, more baseballs than ever before have been flying into their yards, threatening both lives and property. Residents have speculated that Union …

Bill and Heidi Terens got an unwelcome surprise in the mail last June, a notice from the Township of Scotch Plains that Union Catholic Regional High School had applied to install stadium-style lights around its new baseball field. For the Terenses, whose backyard abuts the first-baseline, it was the last straw. They said they fully supported the school’s plans to renovate its worn field, a project that began in 2009, but they claim that Union Catholic administrators misled them about the potential for stadium lights. So they, like many residents living within 200 feet of the sports complex …

Dear Alan: A recent judgment in Union County Court leaves baseball at Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains in jeopardy. Neighbors' angst for the recent upgrades to the field has led them to take their case to the extreme. Filing that the fear of foul balls from the field could injure someone while in their backyard; that all baseball should cease. They have won. Baseball has been played at U.C. since the 1960’s. From attending the Town Hall Meetings, it is apparent that the vast majority of the neighbors purchased their homes long after the first field was built. These neighbors, who …

The halls of Union Catholic Regional High School have gone quiet. The Class of 2011 has entered the real world. A fraction of the students attend summer-school classes while some athletes use the facilities to train for sports in the fall. But outside, the fields remain desolate, waiting for baseball players to return. On June 8, a temporary restraining order issued by Union County Superior Court Judge John Malone restricted Union Catholic from holding any baseball games, practices or camps on the turf field the school built in 2009. “Our summer baseball program, the American Legion, would be…

We bring you the full story this week of the dispute between Union Catholic Regional High School and its neighbors – a bitter legal struggle that has temporarily left Union Catholic’s baseball players without a home and divided neighbors that had previously lived amicably together for nearly half a century. On June 8, the Union County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Union Catholic from playing or permitting any baseball games, practices or camps on the turf field the school built in 2009. The order follows a lawsuit filed by a couple that claims that since the …

This week, the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Patch presents a three-part series on the ongoing fight between Union Catholic Regional High School and its neighbors. It is a dispute that principally concerns three families who live on Dutch Lane and eight families who live on Black Birch Road.  Nevertheless, in the interest of full disclosure, my family and I live on Black Birch Road. We are four houses away from Union Catholic’s southern property line, and eight houses – or about a quarter-mile – south of the eight households chiefly affected by the baseball field. Numerous factors and considerations …