Butler schools to build
baseball diamond
By John Enrietto
Eagle Sports Editor
BUTLER TWP— After considering the project for years,
The project will cost about $400,000 and the field will be ready for use by the
2009 spring season, said Michael Strutt,
The field will be located between the tennis courts and football stadium.
"The concept of building a field has been there for a long time and the
idea has resurfaced before," Strutt said. "Now we've allocated the
funding through our capital dollars project to get it done.
"It will be nice to have control of our own facility for baseball, and our
program needs another field. We've got three teams."
Butler's varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams have been playing at
Pullman Park and Highfield for years.
Strutt said the district still will use those fields.
"We're still going to need community fields to get in all of these
games," he said. "Our varsity will still be playing some games at
Pullman, I'm sure. Those folks have been great to us over the years."
Butler's new field will be natural grass, though the cost of having an
artificial turf infield, similar to Pullman Park's, is being explored. Strutt
said a turf infield "will likely be too expensive for our budget."
An electronic scoreboard similar to the one at Highfield will be installed. The
cost of installing lights also will be researched.
Some costs will be curbed by having Butler Vo-Tech students do some of the
labor, including building the dugouts.
"We'll buy the materials and the students will build the dugouts as part
of a class,"Strutt said. "They're excited about it."
Strutt said the outfield wall probably will consist of steel fencing, though
that part of the project has not been finalized.
"There's a lot of advantages to having a baseball field on
campus,"said Butler athletic director Curt Phillips. "The biggest
thing, of course, is accessibility.
"The work can't really get started until school's done, but I know they
plan to have it ready to go by next season."
Third-year Butler baseball coach Dave Florie said he advised the district that
a field on campus "is something that was needed" to help elevate the
program.
"I'm very excited about this,"Florie said. "Any time you have
kids traveling in a car to get to practice or a home game, there's a safety
issue.
"Besides, these kids will finally have a field they can honestly call
their own."
Florie emphasized the importance of a team being able to prepare its own field
for play.
"It's something you control," he said. "Having the responsibility
of getting your own field ready for play, as opposed to someone else getting
their field ready to play for you, is a big difference."
Upgrading Butler's softball fields on campus also will be completed through
capital funding.
"Our junior varsity field needs graded and we want to put dugouts by our
varsity field," Strutt said. "The JVfield needs a new backstop and we
also want to construct a multipurpose building by the field to store equipment,
serve as a concession stand, things like that."
A scoreboard will be installed at the varsity field as well.
Strutt estimates the cost of upgrading the softball fields to be $50,000.