The Columbus City Council got a good dose of sticker shock on Tuesday, when the lone bid submitted for building four new baseball fields came in higher than expected. Much higher.

So high, in fact, that the plans for the park may once again have to wait.

In April, the council approved a $2.1 million plan to build four new fields at the park in a wagon-wheel configuration around the handicap-accessible Field of Dreams.

At roughly the same time, Lowndes County supervisors were authorizing $12 million for their sportsplex property west of the Tombigbee River, a plan that included eight baseball fields.

We noted the disparity in estimates for the ball fields — Lowndes County’s estimated cost was about $800,000 per field, or about, twice as expensive as the projected cost of the Propst Park fields.

Tuesday’s lone bid — submitted by Weather’s Construction — came in at almost $3.6 million, about $1.5 million more than the city had projected for the project.

About $1 million of the bid included other items not included in the base bid, but related to the fields, including $143,650 for irrigation; adding electrical receptacles to backstops, dugouts and scorer’s tables, at a cost of $95,330; adding spectator sunshades for $387,836; and $165,278 to add scorer’s table pavilions.

The council rejected the bid and will re-bid the project in hopes of getting more bids, but it seems to us unlikely that even that will significantly lower the cost.

Council members are eager to get started. As councilman Joseph Mickens said Tuesday, “People want to see some dirt turning out there.”

We agree. Propst Park has been in need of attention for a while.

We think the sticker shock over the cost of the fields could be an opportunity.

We have long been perplexed about the fixation with baseball fields, anyway, not only in Columbus but in Lowndes County and Starkville, where baseball fields at Cornerstone Park in Starkville and the aforementioned Lowndes County Sportsplex are popping up like Dollar General stores. These new fields are in addition to existing fields at Propst, Lake Lowndes, Starkville Sportsplex, McKee Park and Caledonia, among others.

Building ball fields is a default position when there is no real vision for the future of parks and recreation in our communities. It’s difficult to see the demand.

It’s worth remembering that the baseball field projects for Propst Park were part of a much larger, more diverse $25.8 million Master Plan for the park.

Right now, the city has $1.2 million in restaurant tax dollars banked for Propst Park improvements and will receive another $400,000 this year. That’s $1.6 million, not nearly enough to fund the baseball project, but enough to add amenities that could attract more visitors to the park, which was the primary goal all along.

Pickleball courts, which are booming in popularity, walking trails, purchasing property to provide park access to Luxapalila Creek, security stations, landscaping, creating buffer areas to separate the park from nearby residential areas, rerouting traffic, all are a part of the larger plan.

We suggest the city pivot from continued pursuit of what it cannot presently afford to amenities which can be added with the money available.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, after all.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.