OREM — Ten-year-old Wesley Hunter likes baseball, but he loves monkey bars.

Wesley and other jungle gym enthusiasts will be able to enjoy both pastimes when the new Parkway Crossing Stadium opens at Utah Valley State College, thanks to a playground being constructed on the northeast corner of the ballpark.

On Wednesday, Hunter and his siblings donned plastic hard hats and used plastic shovels to break ground on the playground, which is being paid for with a $75,000 donation from Pacific States Cast Iron Pipe Co.

"Now kids don't have to just sit around," Hunter said with a wide grin.

Making children happy is exactly what Provo Angels General Manager Dave Jacobsen wanted when he suggested the playground to college officials.

"I just think (a playground) is a perfect match for this community and this beautiful ballpark," Jacobsen said.

"It's Utah County — there are a million kids," said Zachary Fraser, team spokesman. "You can stand here and watch your kids and the game at the same time."

Though UVSC's baseball team will begin using the $3.8 million stadium early next month to practice, a formal opening ceremony won't be held until the team's first game in March.

The Provo Angels, which signed a 10-year lease with UVSC, will begin using the ballpark in June.

This season will be the minor league team's fifth in the Pioneer League and fifth as an Anaheim Angels affiliate. The club has won the Pioneer League's Southern Division four years in a row.

The Angels arrived in Provo in 2001 with the understanding that the city would build them a baseball stadium. That agreement, however, was never put in writing, and Provo brass failed to raise enough money to fund the stadium project.

So the team used Brigham Young University's Miller Park as a temporary home.

But the Angels won't be claiming Provo for much longer.

Fraser said that the team will gets new colors and formally change its name from Provo Angels to a new moniker that "everyone will love" at a Dec. 3 ceremony.

"We've already garnered interest on an international level," Fraser said. "It'll be fun."

Utah County Commissioner Gary Herbert said the ballpark will mostly benefit UVSC in its pursuit to become a prominent four-year university.

The facility has been trumpeted by UVSC officials as a college and minor league stadium.

It will have the capacity to seat more than 4,000 fans and will include batting tunnels, locker rooms, concession stands and training and office space.

"This is really an addition to the college," Herbert said. "This is just one step in this evolution to, as President (William) Sederburg says, university status with a 'big U' rather than what they have right now, which is university status with a 'little U.' "

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E-mail: lwarner@desnews.com