New Monterey Peninsula College baseball facility nearly complete
MONTEREY >> Glittering in the sunshine with the ocean nearby is a baseball project that has been in the makings at Monterey Peninsula College for more than a decade.
The days of players having to get up game-day mornings at 7 to take buckets to remove standing water in left field are over.
The Lobos long-awaited stateof-the-art synthetic baseball
field is a sight to behold, one the program can proudly boast about.
“It was chosen as a project to finish the last dollars of the bond funding,” said recently retired MPC athletic director Lyndon Schutzler. “It was a long wait. But the project surfaced.”
Schutzler, who retired in July after 20 years as the school’s athletic director and 34 years on the MPC campus, has stayed on to oversee the baseball field project.
In 2003, a $145 million bond
measure was passed for overall school improvements. It enabled MPC to renovate its sports facilities, as well as other buildings on campus. The physical education facilities occupy approximately 20 percent of the campus.
The first project was the stadium, where new bleachers, an eight-lane all-weather track and a synthetic football/soccer field were installed.
Over the years, a new softball field was also built, along with
the installation of a new hardwood floor in the basketball gym and renovations to the school’s swimming pool.
No one has waited longer at MPC for baseball’s field of dreams than coach Daniel Phillips, who took over the program when the bond originally passed.
“I do have to pinch myself,” Phillips said. “This is something I have visualized for years. To see a dream come true leaves
you a little numb. This is my cathedral.”
Renovations to the baseball facility actually started when the football stadium was reconfigured, as a retaining wall was put in behind the outfield wall, which sits below the track.
A brick facade that stretches more than 20 feet across was also built behind home plate a few years back, giving it a Wrigley Fieldtype look.
Yet, the baseball field remained the only natural grass sports facility on campus. The more than 60-year old facility was starting to show its age.
“There are so many memories this field has for so many people,” said Phillips, whose college career as a player started at MPC. “I wanted to keep the integrity of this field.”
Minus the field’s flooding issues. Between the damp foggy spring conditions and the occasional rain, a stream of water that began atop the football press box would trickle down onto the field along the left-field line.
“The water was designed to run down the hill,” Schutzler said, describing the drainage problem. “But the stream would settle near the left-field line instead of the street, sometimes leaving it unplayable for two weeks.”
That will no longer be an issue, as a drainage system for the field was installed under the turf, along with
a pad to act as a water collector.
“Players would be out there with water pumps and buckets hours before the first pitch,” Phillips said. “It wasn’t appropriate for college competition. It’s what we did to make it happen.”
The field was also made flatter, with a slight slope not visible, for drainage purposes.
“Over 200 truckloads of dirt came off this field,” said Phillips, a Monterey High graduate, who guided MPC to a conference title in 2013.
While the field may look like grass and dirt, the lush green outfield and infield are synthetic turf, while the warning track, foul lines and base paths are a dark brown shade.
In addition, home plate and the pitcher’s mound are also synthetic brown surfaces, meaning pitchers no longer will be able to dig their cleats into the dirt.
“A lot of new fields are going to all (artificial) turf,” Schutzler said. “The dirt from the mounds was getting into the turf, making it difficult to maintain. The field and bullpens were the priority.”
One of the things that Phillips did was have the field dimensions changed. With virtually no foul territory along the right-field foul pole, he had the field moved 8 feet to the left.
“We had a lot more square footage to the left side,” Phillips said. “So we just rotated the field a few degrees to make both sides symmetrical.”
Phillips also pushed home plate back 10 feet to
extend the outfield dimensions, turning it into even more of a pitchers’ park.
“I couldn’t move the fences back, so we moved home plate back,” Phillips said. “When we get that ocean breeze, it plays very true to pitchers. It can still be a hitters’ park.”
Especially for pull hitters, as the left- and rightfield foul lines are roughly 325 feet from home plate. Phillips also asked for more sand mix in the turf in the outfield instead of rubber.
“The more sand mixed into the turf, the faster the ball travels” when it hits the turf, Phillips said, noting this will be an advantage for players who hit the ball into the gaps. “We want gap balls to get to the fence.”
While the field is immaculate, there are still more plans in the works to create a finishing touch, such as new dugouts and perhaps lights someday to potentially make it a community field.
As part of the renovations, MPC also installed a new 36-foot scoreboard. All that’s missing now is games.
The Coast Conference has a tentative date for a 28-game conference only schedule starting on April 10. Of course, health department clearance and testing will be part of the return.
“There is a plan in the event we are allowed to resume,” said Phillips, whose season was cut short last spring because of the pandemic. “We’ll see. I choose to be optimistic.”