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Full Version: The Johnson City Press (and Skole) finally admitted it is NOT a baseball staduim
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From the Cooley article.


Quote:The ETSU baseball team has played 19 games so far, compiling an 11-8 record, and all but two have been at Thomas Stadium. There hasn’t been much of a home-field advantage.

The stadium is essentially a construction zone, and fans haven’t been able to get very close to the action - either the bricklaying or the baseball.

“It’s a very quiet stadium right now,” coach Tony Skole said Wednesday. “We’ve had some great crowds, but you can’t hear them in the dugouts because the wind blows out. You can see people cheering out there, but you can’t hear them.

“It’s not an imposing place to play for opponents. I would hope that in April we’ll have some seating ready that’s a little closer to the action.”


Read more: http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/a...z1prGOkEkw
My guess is that Skole wanted the team to play on the field this year so it would be an embarrassment to the administration, in the hopes that they would make sure it got finished sooner.
(03-22-2012 10:27 AM)ETSUfan1 Wrote: [ -> ]My guess is that Skole wanted the team to play on the field this year so it would be an embarrassment to the administration, in the hopes that they would make sure it got finished sooner.

I would guess he wanted the team at Thomas this year because he didn't want 34 round trips' worth of gas to go to Kingsport coming out of his budget. And that's not counting all the practices they would have there.

Dr. Noland was actually out there briefly between games at the EKU doubleheader back in February. I got to talk to him for a couple of minutes about the facility, and while I might have misinterpreted what he said, it sounded to me like they were expecting to have the facility done or mostly done by early-to-mid April. I would assume they want it to be fairly close to complete in time for the Tennessee game on the 11th, since that's likely going to draw a pretty good crowd.

Whatever they do, they need to get the lights going ASAP. These 2:00 and 3:00 start times in the middle of the week are not going to get any students out to watch the team. They've got one home game over the next month, so they'll have plenty of time to get work done on the facility.
(03-23-2012 07:00 PM)Mister Consistency Wrote: [ -> ]
(03-22-2012 10:27 AM)ETSUfan1 Wrote: [ -> ]My guess is that Skole wanted the team to play on the field this year so it would be an embarrassment to the administration, in the hopes that they would make sure it got finished sooner.

I would guess he wanted the team at Thomas this year because he didn't want 34 round trips' worth of gas to go to Kingsport coming out of his budget. And that's not counting all the practices they would have there.

Dr. Noland was actually out there briefly between games at the EKU doubleheader back in February. I got to talk to him for a couple of minutes about the facility, and while I might have misinterpreted what he said, it sounded to me like they were expecting to have the facility done or mostly done by early-to-mid April. I would assume they want it to be fairly close to complete in time for the Tennessee game on the 11th, since that's likely going to draw a pretty good crowd.

Whatever they do, they need to get the lights going ASAP. These 2:00 and 3:00 start times in the middle of the week are not going to get any students out to watch the team. They've got one home game over the next month, so they'll have plenty of time to get work done on the facility.

I don't see them making that deadline either.
(03-24-2012 09:53 PM)abuc90 Wrote: [ -> ]I don't see them making that deadline either.

Probably not, and certainly not if we get more rain. But at least we'll have a good chance of getting the lights up and running and be able to play evening games in the midweek, if nothing else.

It will be a great facility when it's finished, though. It will be one of the best facilities in the conference and the state.
But it should not have been opened until it was ready. You only have 1 chance to make a good impression on fans that might come out to the new field for its first game, but will not come back. They likely would not have come back anyway, but they certainly wont now that we made them sit in their own chairs, etc. And instead of telling everyone about how good of a place it is, everyone in their sphere will only hear negatives.
This is where the bald guy will have to shine that head to a mirror shine and put out one hell of a campaign on it. I wouldn't be shocked at all on the date of true completion, that all local media will be invited to an official ribbon cutting. Expect the bribery of Heavenly Ham or possibly Firehouse bbq for the press and dignitaries, lots of pictures and stories to be had on the local news and in the newspaper.
Perhaps even a radio remote or two from the stadium with some free shirts, hats, baseball tickets, textbook scholarships and if they have a lick of sense, atleast one pair of men's/women's basketball season tickets. Just don't be shocked.
And the Bucs played their home finale today in a stadium without seats. I thought there were supposed to be some seating by the first of April.
Can't pay for the seats if you don't have the money to pay for them. Maybe Grindstaff got ino the stadium seat business. Good credit, bad credit, slow credit or no credit, here at Grindstaff YOUR JOB IS YOUR CREDIT! Magic money.
Or better yet, maybe Dave, on a trip to Nashville came to Hickory Hollow Kia and Chris Bostic, where if you have a job and 179 dollars he can sell you anything on the lot.
What a clusterf@#k.
Or to quote Tim from Days of Thunder, they look like monkeys tryin to f@#$ a football.
Baseball still has four home games left on the schedule. There is still a good chance for seats to be installed before the end of the season.

May 2 vs. App State
May 11-13 vs. Stetson
I saw an article on facebook that said it was the home finale. Maybe that was softball or something.
(04-27-2012 02:39 PM)Buc2002 Wrote: [ -> ]Baseball still has four home games left on the schedule. There is still a good chance for seats to be installed before the end of the season.

May 2 vs. App State
May 11-13 vs. Stetson

Gotta love the spin, 20 some games without seats but hey we might have some installed for the last 3 games.I just hope you don't have to go to restroom if you go to a game. I can't believe he jumped on here with that defense, must be a slow day in spinland, Mullins hasn't stuck us foot in mouth lately. Maybe Nolan figured out he needed to muzzle him.
Rod,

I wasn't spinning anything. Just pointing out that there were more games left in the season.
You know, it occurred to me that the ballparks in Upper East Tennessee have always really sucked.

Howard Johnson Field wasn't even flat. This place has no seats.

Let's not even get to the length of the grass at Jim O'Brien Field in Elizabethton (which evidently is cut with a sickle), or Appalachian League teams that used to play minor league baseball in high school football stadiums, or, most horrible of all, the Hancock County High School baseball field.
(04-28-2012 08:09 PM)PittsburghBucs Wrote: [ -> ]You know, it occurred to me that the ballparks in Upper East Tennessee have always really sucked.

Howard Johnson Field wasn't even flat. This place has no seats.

Let's not even get to the length of the grass at Jim O'Brien Field in Elizabethton (which evidently is cut with a sickle), or Appalachian League teams that used to play minor league baseball in high school football stadiums, or, most horrible of all, the Hancock County High School baseball field.


I hadn't thought about the Hancock field in years. Awesome ground rules between the creek in left center, the tennis court in center and the road in right.
Did you ever go to Cosby? It was played on a football field from one of the endzones, left field was like 250 feet but right field was like 450 feet.
I don't recall Cosby.

What I do recall is-

Johnson County and the corn stalks on the field.

Unicoi County- supposedly the best program in the area- and their 325 foot fence to centerfield.

Junked cars by the field in one venue.

Some sort of hump at the place in Newport. What was this, the Baker Bowl (actually- I do think that field was created when the Baker Bowl was still up)?
By the way, Rod, are you now going to jump up and down on our moderator for getting the ETSU baseball schedule on Facebook?

Just wondering. I know you aren't petty enough or anything to go into personal attacks so I guess not.
Devault was always nice, except for the restrooms. For lefties who hit the longball well, it was always a competition to see how far up the street you could hit it, or for righties trying to hit the public fields.
There's a good chance this will be a nice stadium if it's ever completed.
(04-26-2012 09:00 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote: [ -> ]And the Bucs played their home finale today in a stadium without seats. I thought there were supposed to be some seating by the first of April.

Softball played their home finale on Thursday. Baseball was traveling to Tucson at the time. Easy mix-up to make.

I haven't been out there since the first weekend of April when they got the lights running. They were finishing up the brick on the main building and it wasn't long before that series that they had put in the concrete base for the box seats behind home plate. I have no idea what kind of progress they have made. Based on what I last saw, I'd be rather surprised if they were ready to put in seats for the Stetson series.

I will say this, though: that field is beautiful when it's lit up at night. The lighting is almost sheer around the outfield, so there's nothing in the background to distract from the game despite the low outfield wall. Toss in the scoreboard (which is going to be HUGE) to move the eyes away from University Edge, and the inside of the park is totally isolated from the outside world. I love that.
Today starts the final home series for the Bucs, anybody know if they got any seats installed?
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