Field Options, for mid-Feb live Game, and Beyond

[Baseball=Life]

So, I apologize at the outset for bringing up a topic we've already discussed adnauseum....

I anticipate us having a Live game against some outside participants in mid-February.

Curt Flood works but has the downside that the pitching rubber on that mound has such a trench on the homeplate side of it that it is virtually impossible to pitch from the windup. Because of the trench, it's probably a 10 inch drop from where the pitcher's feet begin, to where they must land on his way to the plate. I'm talking about the area they would push off the rubber with. It should be a few inches, not a 10 " drop.

The easiest idea is probably to repair that area around the pitching rubber to deal with this problem.

Another, less easy, option is to use a different field entirely. So here we so with talking about other field options. (The net results of this discussion will be useful even beyond this mid-Feb. live game.)

I figure we should create a master list of options we haven't already decided won't work. Then, I'll go check out the ones we all think are the best. So here's the suggestions I've gotten so far, for which I haven't heard arguments against them. Ok, one of them is an old option, but I'm going to bring it up again, damnit.

McConnell Field. This is the field that's somewhere like Olive and 78th, deep in Oakland. The team that wants to play us in mid-Feb has been using it, so it's got to be minimally useful. They don't prefer it because they feel the left field distance isn't far enough. This field has no CF fence (there's another, smaller field in CF), but has good fences for LF and RF. I felt LF and RF were adequate distances until I heard this critique from the fella running this other team. My feeling is that the location is not an issue, despite being in a part of Oakand we haven't played in before.

Nichols Park: This is in Richmond at Lavonya DeJean Middle School, near the Richmond BART. Antmo gave us some nice overhead views of this field (someone please link to that other thread, or repost the actual links to those overhead views), and it's actually 3 fields from what I can remember, of varying sizes. The impression I have is this is a pretty good option, though I haven't seen it firsthand.

Oakland High School: This is at Park Blvd and MacArthur. I know very little about the field or its availability.

Caldecott Field: This field is not far from the Caldecott tunnel, near Highway 24. I believe it can be seen by using maps.google.com for Tunnel Road in Oakland, then look on the other side of Hwy 24. I've been told the satellite funtion via this method is an old picture, however.

So please give any input you have about backup fields, and also confirm whether you agree with my initial statement that, at least for now, we should repair the Curt Flood mound for the mid-Feb game.

[Southpaw Slim]

Oakland High is undergoing reconstruction. Nichols park sounds like a very intriguing option.

[Joe shmoe]

scot i think that for right now our best bet is to repair curt flood as it is our main field. but we should look at better fields. i think we should look at other fields i like caldecott (i think caldecott field is the field i saw from BART), also nichols sounds chill.

[Baseball=Life]

I'm going to try to go visit Caldecott and the Richmond parks this week.

[AntMoOAK]

O High's field has been ready for use since football season and is a field that is NEVER in use on the weekends. I don't know about access though.

[AntMoOAK]

I honored Presidents' Day by scouting fields for the great American past time.


Scott--- Nicholl Park in Richmond is a very good option. I actully went in to the complex and there are three fields. The largest is field 3 (right most picture). Good for a live game. It is college size. Only drawback is that is also used every weekend for soccer- although I never understood why they just don't play on the SOCCER FIELD next to the baseball diamonds. Field 2 is next it is in the lower left of the photograph. This is also a good field but to me least desirable as it is shaded and the outfield could be mowed. Field 1 in the top left of the photograph is the best for our regular games the field is large enough to not have righties and l lefties breaking homerun records, but small enough to allow maybe 2-3 homers a game with a short fence in left and center for robbing homers potential. All three of these fields have nice infields. no foul lines in the infield or outfield grass although there are foul markers at the fences. A push mower could establish foul lines in the outfield.

3300 MacDonald @ Harry Ells Place.
Accesible by 580, 80, Bus # 72, BART (.5 miles away) There is a MacDonalds, (2) 7-11s within 6 blocks of each other (go figure) and a number of taco trucks.

Here is the link to the photos. Someone else should take a look and maybe consider it as an alternate. I like CF but only 1 homer (for the righties)

http://gohlkusmaximus.com/parkbaseball/ ... art=15[url][/url]