Quirky fields

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by voiceoflg

What are some of the quirkiest fields you've worked on and what made them that way?

In Columbus, Ga. there is Jordan High School that shares a baseball field and a softball field. Picture a perfect square about 450' on each side with a fence enclosing it. The baseball field is on the NW corner and the softball field is on the SW corner. By my math, the opposite corner in straightaway center field is about 600' from home plate.

Oh, and it has a fire hydrant in left field about 300' from home plate.

What you're describing is common in New York City parks, except for the hydrant; however, there might be a manhole cover instead. And each corner has a diamond. This allows 4 simultaneous games, with the other infields as part of each field's outfield.

Robert

[soundedlikeastrike]

My old HS field had some intersting quirks:
Center field was butted up to the track, no fence. If no track rats were around it was in play, a ball would roll across hit the curb and you'd have to chase it, if it kicked down the track, you could work on your 100 yd. dash times. If the track rats were around 2 bases, if a ball cleared the track in the air, HR.
Then on over to RF, which had a very steep bank, with a cement retaining wall at the bottom about 5' high and a 6' cyclone at the top, problem was it was only about 270' down the line, anything on the bank 2 bases, cleared the monster on top HR. As you moved from the RF corner towards CF the retaining wall stopped after about 50' but the bank was still there, if a ball rolled up on the bank "play it", in the air 2 bases. Fortunately this field has been replaced.

We still have a local BR field with the light poles inside the fence, last time I was there they had them wrapped with padding at least.

We also have a new baseball diamond here locally, state of the art, beauty, but when our associatlon went out to check it out, first thing we noticed was the Foul Poles, great big screens, just like the majors but, they were swung out to the "foul side". We were able to convince the County that those needed to be corrected.