2016 was quite a year for Jake Owen. The Florida native released his fifth studio album, American Love, which hit the top spot on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, he saw his single “American Country Love Song” go to No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and he found out that his friend, NASCAR champion Kevin Harvick, would be naming a baseball park after him. Now, that’s how you close out a year.
Kevin surprised his friend—at the Kevin Harvick sixth annual Dinner, Auction and Concert in December—by announcing that The Kevin Harvick Foundation and The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation would open a Youth Development Park in honor of the “Alone With You” singer, creating Jake Owen Field, in his hometown of Vero Beach, Fla.
Kevin and Jake have been friends for many years, meeting at a charity even that the NASCAR champion asked Jake to be involved in. Kevin also made a cameo in Jake’s 2015 video for the single “Real Life.” Check out Kevin celebrating in the back of a truck around the 2:14 mark.
According to Veronews.com, two youth-league baseball fields – including one with a synthetic turf surface – will be built at Vero Beach’s Michael Field complex, where construction is scheduled to begin in January and the new fields are expected to be ready for play in March.
So, if you ever had that urge to run all over Jake Owen, you can do so when Jake Owen Field opens to the public in Summer 2017.
Jake Owen Photo courtesy Sony Music Nashville ; Jake Owen Field renderings courtesy of The Kevin Harvick Foundation