I've been fortunate all these years to have travelled to some wonderful places to coach 17-18 baseball. I used to prefer playing at home. Back in the 90's, our summer program had free run of Atholton H.S. (Columbia, MD). We fertilized, watered regularly, dragged the field properly, kept the grass mowed and manicured, kept weeds away from the fence, kept the dugouts clean, etc... This was done in conjunction with the high school program.
About 5 years ago, the county told us that we couldn't perform maintenance on the field anymore, since the high school team had been told not to do so. For many years, Atholton H.S. was the best field in Howard County, MD. It has been so frustrating playing on a subpar field these many years, but what can you do? It is embarrassing to have teams travel great distances, for what? While the level of competition is the most important thing, the field conditions can drastically change the quality of the game (ie. 5 inch high grass in the infield, ruts in the infield dirt, etc...).
Wanted to name a few of the fields we have played on that are great locations to play (mostly because of the playing surface, but some because of the atmosphere/feel you get when playing there). Was hoping others might mention some places (east of the Mississippi) that should be recognized as well.
My top places, in no particular order:
1. Univ. of Delaware
2. Wide World of Sports in Walt Disney World (big stadium and annex fields)
3. Harry Grove / McCurdy fields in Frederick, MD
4. Russiaville, Indiana (Cubs field? - been many years)
5. Rutgers Univ.
6. Mt. Airy American Legion (MD)
7. Towson Univ.
8. Baseball Factory field at UMBC
9. First Tennessee Fields
10. Virginia Tech
11. Radford Univ.
12. Univ. of Virginia
13. Old Dominion Univ.
Notice I have not one high school field in this list. Any thoughts on this? My apologies if I have left some out.
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