Hobgood Park — Attraction in Georgia

Started walking here with my dog last Fall. At first, it was pretty nice. Now with baseball season in full swing, it's awful.

The other reviewer who mentioned the crowds wasn't wrong. It's insane as it is with the amount of games happening at one time, but there are huge parties in the parking lot, seemingly every night. There are tailgaters barbecuing, people standing in the middle of the lot unwilling to move for car traffic, and people are bringing out large trailers and parking them sideways, taking up 3-5 spots (and sometimes more) each. With the very limited amount of parking in the first place, this is all insanely discourteous. I just want to walk my dog once or twice around the track, and that is becoming more and more impossible.

The park is FILTHY! There is garbage all over the walking track, mostly from kids throwing their crap everywhere but the garbage cans. The grass is cut seemingly once every 3 months and is overgrown. Other dog walkers do NOT pick up after their pets, so there is feces everywhere. And right along where the track meets the children's playground facilities, there is a stretch of ground that is collects water like a basin, and is never cleaned or treated. You can smell the mold growing in the ground, and this is right next to where children are playing. Cigarette butts are tossed about everywhere. If your dog has the habit of sometimes picking stuff up from the ground, prepare to handle some really nasty stuff. A track designed for walking should NOT be like this, and all it would take is for the facility to actually have some level of upkeep. Unfortunately, it seems as if the owners do not care.

The general attitude of everyone in the park is very rude. People routinely gather in large groups on the track itself and just stand there in everyone else's way, including joggers. There are batting practice cages right along the track, which is fine, but the players utilizing them don't actually step inside of them...they swing their bats and toss their baseballs alongside it, and show off in front of their friends who stand on the track and do not move for people using the track. Players and staff walking towards the fields routinely walk right in front of you with their equipment and stop to chat, not caring that they are in your way, and parents let their kids run all over the place unsupervised.

The baseball fields themselves do not seem to be built to the correct size for the players that occupy them. Baseballs are routinely hit hard over the fences, onto the walking track, and pose a hazard to anyone who wishes to use the track. Balls are even hit over the track and into the parking lot, hitting cars and windshields. There are "Walk at your own risk" signs scattered about, and if you pay any bit of attention, you should be able to avoid being hit in the side of the head, but this is unacceptable for a park that welcomes dogs. A baseball hit at the level the teams are routinely hitting them can instantly kill your pet, and the park is not liable for it.

It's unfortunate that this park seems to be completely overbooking their facilities with the amount of teams they let use the fields at once. It's very unfortunate that they cannot maintain their facilities properly either. Everything about this park, and the baseball teams that use it, is obnoxious, and it gets more obnoxious as the season goes on. They obviously do not care about the people using the park publicly, either for walking pets or jogging, as they likely make a good bit of money charging the teams. I'd recommend staying away until the late Fall and into the winter months. Myself, I am going to search for other walking tracks in the area...

I would love to say that it's a great place during baseball season for kids but i can not anymore. My son has been playing Baseball part of the Little League at Hobgood for the last 3 seasons. I played baseball here when i was his age as well. This past season we had a volunteer assistant coach who treated the 9 year olds poorly, and no body wanted to stand up to this man. In April he was practicing with the kids as i was watching, and he was per usual, yelling at his son to get off his field if he was going to cry. He was crying because he got hurt. His son got up, and on the next catch he threw as hard as he could at the coach. The coach got angry and threw hard and i stood up and yelled at him. At this time i did not know that the child was his son, but this man has been verbally, and emotionally abusive to the kids the entire season and i had enough. This is when he decided to yell in front of the whole team," That's why my son is on the Allstars, and your son is in the outfield eating dirt." He also stated, "Your son is going to be living in your basement when he is 40." All this in front of my 9 year old sons team, himself, and another adult. So we left, and immediately went about finding out who we needed to report to. We reported it to Hobgood, and they said they would look into it. We kept on them, talked to them in person, were told it would go in front of the board. All that happened was the coach was told he needs to watch what he is saying and doing. So the next few games he was nice and not yelling at the kids. So we told our contact at Hobgood, If Josh Clark will just apologize to our son, we will forget this ever happened and just move on. He told them he would. He never did. We had 2 more practices, that got cancelled, 2 games, that he showed up for at the beginning then left before game started, because his other son is on Allstars and he is the main coach for them. Then we had a party at Stars and Strikes that my wife won at the beginning of the season. He did not show to that. Multiple times he was told to apologize by Hobgood officials, many times he did not. He did not even attempt to call and apologize. Now it's the end of May and the officials are telling us it's to late because the season is over. We had been complaining since the incident happened in April. Hobgood is suppose to be a Zero Tolerance due to being a part of the Little League, but it seems that the park would rather protect a coach, then the emotions of a 9 year old. We reached out to the main Little League association and they stated it was on the Park Officials to make the decision. So we are SOL, and a coach who is a Bully, gets to continue to coach children. This is wrong, we now have to decide to stay at Hobgood where our son has made friends, but will still run into this coach, or go to another place where he does not know anyone. All this because the Hobgood Little League officials want to protect a Allstar Coach, who does not even live in the Hobgood Little League District. It's disheartening, and disgraceful to watch these officials protect Coach Josh Clark. It's a wonderful park, and before this experience, we loved the little league baseball program. After this incident, the park deserves a 0 star because they protect an abusive person, whom everyone lets get away with it because and i quote, "He's an ex marine." Good for him, he's a 40...

We were in Woodstock for a 4-day baseball tournament at Hobgood Park.  First and second impressions:  This is a great park for events and a valuable resource for the local community.

There is a walking/jogging trail around the circumference of the four main ball fields and it is well-used by Woodstockers (Woodstockians?  Woodies?).  Compared to other parks that I've used for that purpose, Hobgood appears to be a popular recreational destination.

Not typical for new(er) sports parks in the Atlanta metropolitan area, Hobgood's planners didn't raze every living thing on the tract of land before building the fields.  There are some large trees between the fields that provide much-appreciated shade and a welcome respite from the unrelenting sun.

The fields are nice, although the lack of infield grass is doofy.  Nice dugouts for the kids, with individual cubbyholes for each player's helmet and equipment.

The large concession stand/building central to the four fields is well-stocked and the prices are typical.  Also typical are the attitudes of the teenagers manning the counters..."What do you want?"  But whatever.  The drinks are cold.

If you need to pee, you can (eventually) do so in complete privacy, although you'll probably have folks jiggling the door handle or knocking on the door.  Curiously, the block building that houses the bathrooms is isolated at one corner of the fields, instead of being in a central location.  More curiously, there are five men's rooms and five women's rooms, each accessed by separate doors on opposite sides of the building.  Do people in Woodstock have a neurotic aversion to conventional restrooms with urinals and/or stalls?  I have no idea, but the way that they built this farce deserves a Derpa Derp Award of Distinction.  Because, of course, nobody bothers to knock on a closed door before wrenching the handle around like they're Hulk on a rampage, you'll think that a crazed maniac is trying to break into the place while you're doing your business.  And because there's no way to tell if a particular room is occupied and because nobody has the courtesy to yelp anything in response if you actually knock before trying the handle, you are reduced to walking down the line of five doors, torquing handles and hoping beyond hope that your luck is bigger than your bladder.  It's like Monty Hall hates you and there's nothing good behind any of the doors.

Anyway.  Nice park, for the most part.  Gotta get on the road to Hobgood for game #3 of the series.  Check it out, if you are in the area.  Pee before you get...