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And the sun came out today!

 

Hello Everyone – It was a beautiful day around here. It was a little cool but nice enough to spend some time outdoors with my grandchildren.

 

Those of you who have been reading the Fastpitch Bulletins and visiting the Fastpitch Chronicle website over the years and know me pretty well, know that I have a plastic bat and ball stadium in my back yard. Call if wiffle ball if you want but we don t hit too many true waffle balls.

 

I started building the stadium in 2000 and have been adding things to it each season. Last season my grandson wanted me to add a press box to the top of the backstop so I did. I built a small press box, put a plexi-glass window in it and added to female mannequins I had purchased during the summer of 2006. We added a wig, some clothes and a baseball cap to each one and stuck them in the press box. They appear to be the announcers and scorekeeper up there. I sealed the entire box and those two ladies endured a brutal winter but survived in tact.

 

Graham and I spent a couple hours out there this afternoon with me pitching and him banging plastic balls all over the place including his second-ever ball over the fence. He hit is first-ever home run on May 20th of last year when he was four. Today he nailed the top of the wall about a dozen times and rapped the wall another few dozen times. Today we talked about worked on hitting the outside pitch to the right side, the down the middle pitch back up the middle and the inside pitch to the left side. If you were to come and pitch to him, you d be very impressed with his ability to do just that. We work on all kinds of fundamental things like playing a ball off the wall and turning the correct way so as to save steps in getting off the throw to the cut-off person; getting his nose under fly balls and then covering his nose with his glove etc. For a five-year-old his overhand throwing is awesome and he could actually pitch to me and throw hittable pitches now.

 

I started building a stadium before I had grandchildren so it would be ready when they were. My granddaughter, Anne is 2+ so I will get her started this summer by throwing pitches to her like I did Graham.

 

The stadium is totally enclosed with dugouts, astro-turf infield (from Rich Stadium in Buffalo, NY – yes the stuff OJ ran on), has an in-ground sprinkling system, pennants flying high in the air every eight feet, four sections of the actual outfield wall at the former County Stadium in Milwaukee (the Earth Grains Ad), a lighted scoreboard, a party deck attached to the outfield wall in left-center field, about 150 plastic balls and a variety of plastic bats. This summer my plan is to re-construct the right-field out of play fence and add a sound system so we can play ball park tunes out there when we are playing.

The naming rights are now up for bid. It s now called Legends Field at Thompson Yard ( a takeoff of Orioles Park at Camden Yard in Baltimore). 

 

The outfield distances are 97 feet to the left field line; 105 feet to straight away center and just 81 feet to right field foul pole but the wall in right field is 12 high so you have to hit balls like major leaguers do in Fenway to get one out of there. The 97 to left field is deceiving too because the wall is actually embedded in a bank that is about 6 feet above the playing surface so you have to hit them high enough to clear about a 10 wall. The basepaths are cut and the bases are 37.5 feet apart.

 

It appears that the upcoming week is going to allow a lot of softball games to be played. Be sure to post your scores and game reports and be sure to nudge the coach at your school to do so if you get the Bulletins or read it online on wissports.net.

I posted an Eau Claire Memorial season outlook on the Big Rivers Conference area of www.wissports.net today. Thanks to Brad Chapman at Memorial for submitting the preview.

 

If you have a player or players that are contemplating collegiate softball and have chosen a school or are considering several, send me an e-mail so I can get them some publicity.

Things are going to get hectic very quickly as most schools have multiple games to make up. I know that we have five games this week. That s ¼ of our regular season total this week.

 

Any schools within reasonable travel distance to or from Poynette that are looking for JV games, please contact me. I need to schedule about a dozen more for our girls. I d prefer single games but would do a few twinbills too. Just e-mail me at either [email=btoml@poynette.k12.wi.us]btoml@poynette.k12.wi.us[/email] or [email=faspich1@aol.com]faspich1@aol.com[/email] and I ll get right back to you. You can call my school office phone and leave a message too at 608-635-4347 #432.

 

Check out the softball pictures at scoreimages.photoreflect.com as well. There are some great shots there that my son has taken the past two seasons. Also check out the example of a team poster he has done for our Poynette program and for Madison Memorial. He will be out and around all spring clicking away and loading pictures on that website. he will surely be at the Poynette Fastpitch Jamboree where 46 teams will be playing on May 2nd and May 3rd.

 

By the way, in 2009 teams can play more than 20 games so we expect to get more requests for entrants into the Jamboree. We have already promised quite a few new teams berths next season. We have expanded the Jamboree to include the great facility in Portage as well. We will be playing there this year too. The Jamboree is not a tournament, it's just a huge, well organized, well run fastpitch event -- a jamboree.

 

That s about it for tonight!

Keep it Rising!

Bob