Eight months back, Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman touted transforming the city’s parks into a destination spot for sports tourism, an effort that might elevate the quality of the parks to better serve local athletes.

This week, Freeman said there’s promise for such progress, courtesy of a hometown rapper and the Houston Astros.

In an appearance on The Port Arthur News’ weekly livestreamed newsmakers’ show Thursday — Freeman, the incumbent, was the fifth of five candidates for mayor to appear — the mayor said his cousin, rapper Bernard Freeman — better known to hiphop fans as Bun B — had called a couple of months ago to see about funneling charity dollars to Port Arthur, the musician’s hometown. During the conversation, the mayor told Bun B that the city could use help in building a premier sports facility here to host tournaments and draw outsiders to the restaurants and hotels in the city.

Although the rapper had grown up and launched his music career in this city, he’d moved to Houston years back, where he lectures on music and religion at Rice University and where he plays an active role in the community.

 

Heart for PA

Among his passions — he’s a Houston Astros fan who wrote “Crush City” as an Astros theme in 2015 — are baseball and community activism.

“He’s always had a heart for Port Arthur,” the mayor said of his cousin, who turned The mayor said the rapper told him he’d call back in five minutes, and when he did, he had promising news.

Bun B, who turned 46 this week, had called the Houston Astros Foundation and drawn some interest from the professional baseball team’s charitable arm in supporting and the rebuilding of park facilities here.

That wasn’t a big stretch, the mayor said: The Astros Foundation, a 501c3 charity, supports youth baseball and softball and also the nation’s military. The park, now shabby and in disrepair, is named for Staff Sgt. Lucian Adams, a Port Arthur native who earned the Medal of Honor for bravery in France during World War II.

 

Early talks

Bun B could not be reached Friday, but Assistant City Manager Becky Underhill said she talked with the rapper first after Bun B’s conversation with the mayor.

She said he was businesslike and determined to help. She forwarded information to Chandra Alpough, director of parks and recreation, who later spoke with a representative of the Astros Foundation. She said the city and the foundation will talk again; Underhill said that call would likely be made in early April.

The mayor proposed last July that Port Arthur get into the effort to host youth sports tournaments — baseball, softball and soccer — to improve facilities here and to lure tourists. Among parks that could be developed, he said, were Adams, located across the street from Port Arthur Memorial High School; Pioneer Park, near Christus Southeast Texas St. Mary’s; and County Park in Port Acres.

“Our parks are in need of help,” he said then. “It might be better to do something on a grand scale. We can use that to bring economic development to the city.”

A walk through Adams Park on Friday revealed both the potential and the challenges. The park offers plenty of land and fields for baseball, softball and football, but the facilities are shabby and worn. Potholes in the entrances and in the park’s interior roads were enormous.

Tammy Kotzur, executive director of the Port Arthur Convention & Visitors Bureau, said Port Arthur lacks the facilities for hosting big tournaments now. In addition to parks needing an overhaul, she said, they almost demand vigilant maintenance.

Alpough said it appears the Astros Foundation and the city are at the start of their conversations.