Atlantic 10 baseball stadiums

[RhowdyRam02]

With the forward momentum VCU is showing for a new ballpark, it made me think it's time to look at how our facilities match up with other A10 and Rhode Island schools. Obviously we'll never match VCU's facilities, but how do we rank otherwise?

Rhode Island - Bill Beck Field - Approximately 1000 capacity (the vast, vast majority being bring your own chair or standing), field turf, no lights. The pictures I've added show all of our official seating. From gorhody.com: "The next phase of Bill Beck Field's renovation project - which will begin after additional fundraising goals are met - will feature an improved grandstand/bleacher/pressbox setup." No word on what those fundraising goals are or what we want the improvements to look like.





Davidson - Wilson Field - 700 capacity, artificial turf infield/natural grass outfield, lights.





Dayton - Woerner Field - seating for 500, lights. Apparently there was a sinkhole in left field this summer, but they must have fixed it because they're still planning on playing games there this season.



Fordham - Houlihan Park - 500 seat grandstand, field turf, lights, video board. Left and center field is Fordham's football field.





George Mason - Spuhler Field - grandstand seating for 900, grass playing surface with artificial turf around home plate area (think late 90's Fenway), no lights.





George Washington - Tucker Field - seating for 500/total capacity of 1000, field turf, lights. Park is located 4.5 miles from GW campus.





UMass - Earl Lorden Field - small grandstand area, grass field with artificial turf around home plate, no lights.





Richmond - Pitt Field - bleachers with 600 person capacity, field turf, no lights





St. Bonaventure - Handler Park - grass berm seating, artificial turf, no lights.





St. Joseph's - Smithson Field - bleacher seating for 400, artificial turf, no lights





St. Louis - Billiken Sports Center - capacity of 500, looks like artificial infield/grass outfield, lights





VCU - The Diamond - capacity of 9560, grass, lights, video board. Former home of the AAA Richmond Braves from the field's opening in 1985 to 2008, current home of the Richmond Flying Squirrels since 2010.





Bryant - Conaty Park - seating for 500 including 200 chairback seats, grass, no lights





Brown - Murray Stadium - bleachers and chairback seating capacity of 1000, artificial turf, no lights

[RF1]

Something along the lines of GW or Brown would be nice and more than sufficient.

[RhowdyRam02]

One thing I found pretty interesting in all of this, I assumed it would be overwhelming that most places would have lights, however it was almost an even split with 6 having lights and 7 not. I suppose it's not a huge surprise, with the season going from mid-February to mid-May and having a good chunk of schools located in areas where they play almost the whole first half on the road in warmer climates and only two teams selling tickets to their baseball games (GW and VCU), having night availability isn't that much of a priority. I would still like to see us add lights at some point to Beck Field. If my old little league field can have lights it seems comical that URI doesn't

[RhowdyRam02]

Something along the lines of GW or Brown would be nice and more than sufficient.

Agreed. Right now I'd say we're strongly in the bottom half of facilities for fans, I can't say I know how to judge facilities for the players, but it wouldn't take a whole lot to join the top half of these facilities (non-VCU division). That said, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if we built something closer to UConn's Elliot Ballpark. 1351 seats, lights, video board.





One thing that might make upgrading Beck Field make more sense in terms of usage, and maybe help in terms of defraying costs would be to convince the Ocean State Waves to move from Wakefield to an upgraded stadium

[RF1]

Getting a minor league team to play there might be feasible. Holy Cross has a team playing at its stadium that will be likely looking for a new home in the near future. RI may be ripe for a bigger minor league team presence given the loss of the Pawsox. Kingston in the warmer months with many nearby summer residents and vacationers might be ideal (akin to the Cape League). It would also be far enough from the markets of other higher level minor league teams.

[RhowdyRam02]

My understanding was that minor league territorial rights were 35 miles, which puts Kingston out of Hartford's range, but then I read that it was 35 miles plus any adjacent counties which if true puts us in Hartford's territory. In addition to this, when MLB took over the minor leagues they eliminated 43 teams, so there are already plenty of cities looking for minor league teams. Kingston might have an uphill climb for affiliated baseball, and if we're going to be unaffiliated we might as well just stay with the second ranked summer college league instead of independent ball

[Rhodymob05]

Again, our facilities are bottom of the conference.

[OBRAM]

Well, the Dunk (which was fixed up by using State Money and which was said after completed 'Every surface of the Old Dunk has been refurbished' ),needs a new roof.