BB: CCIW: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[augie28]

Thanks BigPoppa

[Gregory Sager]

Greg,

As of June 2007, endowment was slightly over 62 million:  http://www.northpark.edu/home/index.cfm?NorthPark=About.Abt_Facts

I received a form letter from Dr. Parkyn's office recently that stated the same number.  According to wikipedia.org, endowment was just 36 million in 2005.  That's a nice increase over a 2 year period assuming wikipedia has accurate numbers.

This doesn't change your argument, but just an fyi.

Yeah, I knew that NPU passed 50 million sometime last year. I just didn't bother trying to locate the new number. Thanks for the update.

I also have no idea what the actual dimensions are, but I would agree with it being close to 290 down the right field line.  I would have to say center is closer to 375 though (once again with nothing to go on other than visual memory.  When I last played there, it continued to go out further as you moved into left field and the left field line was back near the softball field at 400'+.  Is that still the case, or have they created a temporary fence at a more reasonable distance?

There is a temporary fence that cuts across the edge of the softball infield. It's still significantly deeper down the left field line than it is down the right field line.

You could be right about center field being in the 375 range. It's probably somewhere between my guess and yours.

In any case, that's both the great thing and the rough thing about D3 sports.  You see fields, stadiums and amenities from every side of the spectrum.  Just within the CCIW you have nice fields at IWU, Carthage, NCC and the $1.5 million stadium at Augie, which in my biased opinion is the best.  Then there is the fair playing surface but poor baseball environment at NPU, followed by nothing more than average high school fields at Millikin, Elmhurst and Wheaton.

Very true. The thing that we all have to keep in mind is that this is D3, and at this level many (if not most) schools have to work around varying sets of limitations when it comes to athletics. Well put, augie28.

I like how you turned a lame joke into an affront to everything that is North Park. A shrug of the shoulders, a roll of the eyes or maybe even a chuckle was my expectation. Ah well, can't win 'em all.

Didn't know I needed boxing gloves after making jokes about field dimensions. Have a nice day, Sager and everyone else who saw things his way. Keep taking the North Park fight to the oppressors who think the dimensions of a baseball field reflect poorly on a university. You know, people like me, or so I just read.

I think 280-330 feet, like was written, is worthy of a comment. How that comment is received isn't up to me. Fire away, I guess.

Rather than fire back at your obnoxious dig at North Park with a like-minded riposte, I thought that I'd take the high road and explain for you the circumstances behind the lopsided dimensions of NPU's ballpark (along with a couple of major league examples that show that a foul pole 285 feet from home plate is not exactly unprecedented). Sorry if the high road did not satisfy your thirst for snarky banter.

[mr_b]

I like how you turned a lame joke into an affront to everything that is North Park. A shrug of the shoulders, a roll of the eyes or maybe even a chuckle was my expectation. Ah well, can't win 'em all.

Didn't know I needed boxing gloves after making jokes about field dimensions. Have a nice day, Sager and everyone else who saw things his way. Keep taking the North Park fight to the oppressors who think the dimensions of a baseball field reflect poorly on a university. You know, people like me, or so I just read.

I think 280-330 feet, like was written, is worthy of a comment. How that comment is received isn't up to me. Fire away, I guess.

Rather than fire back at your obnoxious dig at North Park with a like-minded riposte, I thought that I'd take the high road and explain for you the circumstances behind the lopsided dimensions of NPU's ballpark (along with a couple of major league examples that show that a foul pole 285 feet from home plate is not exactly unprecedented). Sorry if the high road did not satisfy your thirst for snarky banter.

What has not been mentioned is the previous incarnation of the field, a traditional grass and dirt infield in a smaller footprint than the current field.  Home plate was a scant few feet from the back screen; passed balls and wild pitches did not easily allow runners to advance.  The new field has a much nicer stretch of green behind home plate that approximates what I've seen at other fields.

The old field had dugouts that were made of wood and would jam two dozen players together just behind the coaching boxes... and with no protective barriers such as fencing.  Imagine the hazards.  The present brick dugouts are wide and deep with high ceilings and a long aluminum bench... a welcome difference!

There was a Tartanturf track (used by the track teams) that ran around the perimeter of the stadium and in front of the old bleachers.  It also served as the warning track from center to right.  Try diving for balls on that surface.  There were no foul poles, as I recall.

What the old field had and what the present field lacks is an enormous net -- a la Fenway Green monster, maybe 25 feet high, that ran from the right field corner to about right-center.  It knocked down a lot of cheapie home runs and converted them to doubles and singles.  I believe the distance down the right field line was about the same as it is now, whatever that number is.

The current temporary fencing from left to center runs a straight line, and a home run to left-center and straightaway center requires quite a poke.  Line drives to deep gaps often yield triples and inside-the-park homers.

The field turf is low maintenance and gives fielders true hops.  The drainage system is outstanding.

It's a field that fits into an existing space that we are happy to have.  Sure, we all wish we had another ten or twenty acres, but in an urban setting, it's a clever multi-use facility (baseball, softball, football, soccer) which we greatly appreciate.

[OshDude]

What you call the high road I call not being able to take a joke, er, obnoxious dig. You are too funny. Keep seeing things in your ultra-defensive way and not reading things for what they are, my friend. Some day your imaginary foe will put up a fight because nowhere did I mention economics, geographic location or why anything is the way it is.

Is a 330-foot field commentable? How my benign comment on field dimensions devolved into a reply like yours is awesome. Guess what? The world is not trying to dump on North Park. But please keep defending it for no reason. It has a tiny baseball field. And like the old Dodger Stadium, people will make comments about it.

[Gregory Sager]

I can take a joke just fine, thank you very much. However, a wisecrack from out of nowhere about a field only being fit for your eight-year-old niece is hardly benign. In fact, it isn't something that is going to be received in a light-hearted manner by anyone, regardless of how good a sense of humor he has. It's just plain nasty. Perhaps if you would've eased up on the hyperbole it would've been received better.

I thought that I was paying you some respect by explaining the circumstances behind the field's size rather than coming back at you or UW-Oshkosh in a similar heavy-handed manner. It just goes to show that best intentions are simply wasted on some people.

[OshDude]

I can take a joke just fine, thank you very much. However, a wisecrack from out of nowhere about a field only being fit for your eight-year-old niece is hardly benign. In fact, it isn't something that is going to be received in a light-hearted manner by anyone, regardless of how good a sense of humor he has. It's just plain nasty. Perhaps if you would've eased up on the hyperbole it would've been received better.
I thought that I was paying you some respect by explaining the circumstances behind the field's size rather than coming back at you or UW-Oshkosh in a similar heavy-handed manner. It just goes to show that best intentions are simply wasted on some people.

"Only"? Maybe reread my post.

And hey, we agree on something! Amen to the last sentence.

I'm someone who finds humor in what was written. Maybe I don't count toward your "anyone."

You can say anything truthful about Oshkosh that you want. Lol. Heck, you can even skip a level and make it heavy-handed. I guarantee you I won't give you a civics/history lesson to prove why what you wrote is true, that's for sure.

And my niece plays T-ball on a symmetrical 280(ish)-foot field. No hyperbole there. She also rolled one to the wall last year, but the [joke alert] pitcher had nothing left in the third inning of a [joke alert, but probably close] 26-24 game. Plus, [joke alert] my niece can rake a bit.

I'll file it away: don't make jokes about North Park's baseball field. There are many things I won't joke about. I didn't think a NPU facility would be one of them. Lesson learned. I'm done. I promise.

[Gregory Sager]

I can take a joke just fine, thank you very much. However, a wisecrack from out of nowhere about a field only being fit for your eight-year-old niece is hardly benign. In fact, it isn't something that is going to be received in a light-hearted manner by anyone, regardless of how good a sense of humor he has. It's just plain nasty. Perhaps if you would've eased up on the hyperbole it would've been received better.
I thought that I was paying you some respect by explaining the circumstances behind the field's size rather than coming back at you or UW-Oshkosh in a similar heavy-handed manner. It just goes to show that best intentions are simply wasted on some people.

"Only"? Maybe reread my post.

And hey, we agree on something! Amen to the last sentence.

I'm someone who finds humor in what was written. Maybe I don't count toward your "anyone."

You can say anything truthful about Oshkosh that you want. Lol. Heck, you can even skip a level and make it heavy-handed. I guarantee you I won't give you a civics/history lesson to prove why what you wrote is true, that's for sure.

And my niece plays T-ball on a symetrical 280-foot field. No hyperbole there. She also rolled one to the wall last year, but the [joke alert] pitcher had nothing left in the third inning of a [joke alert, but probably close] 26-24 game. Plus, my niece can rake a bit.

I'll file it away: don't make jokes about North Park's baseball field. There are many things I won't joke about. I didn't think a NPU facility would be one of them. Lesson learned. I'm done. I promise.

And thank God for that. I didn't think it was possible for someone to outdo me at making a mountain out of a molehill, even in the wake of one of my six-paragraph extravaganzas, but you somehow managed to pull it off. Congratulations.

[matblake]

Wheaton wins again, this time against Aurora.  They pass their win total from last year.

[augie28]

This weekend's 3-game series between Augie and Wheaton has come to be a fairly big weekend if Augie wants to stay strong at the top of the conference.  They could really use 3 wins after dropping a game to Elmhurst this week, but that won't be an easy task with the way Wheaton is playing.

Has anyone seen Wheaton in person?  How is their pitching/fielding and what should I expect to see this weekend?

[Ralph Turner]

Greg, I do not remember seeing the baseball field during my excursion to Foster and Kedzie in 2005.   

Does the 285' right field dimension avail itself to some novel solution like a "baggy" a la Metrodome or a Fenway-like wall?

Holmgren

[mr_b]

Greg, I do not remember seeing the baseball field during my excursion to Foster and Kedzie in 2005.   

Does the 285' right field dimension avail itself to some novel solution like a "baggy" a la Metrodome or a Fenway-like wall?

Holmgren

There used to be a big net that rose a good 20-30' above the old bleachers and extended from the right-field foul line to about right-center field, but when the new bleachers were put up, the net was not kept.

As I mentioned before, I don't know the dimensions, but the right field corner is a relatively short porch.  The bleachers run at less than a right angle and right-center is a pretty good home run distance, while straight-away center field requires a real shot.  The wall along the bleachers is a good 8-10 feet high with padding all along the base of the bleachers.  Here is a photo of Sean Keane leading off first base that gives you a better idea : http://www.cadillac76.com/baseball/schedule/games/game17.html  Click on the photo to enlarge; you'll see an angle pointing toward right-center, where the field starts to get deep pretty quickly.

[REDMENFAN]

Wow, been away a few days. I guess I never should've asked the dimensions of NP's field! Ah well, it made for some interesting reading!!   

[mwunder]

Carthage wins game 1 at Millikin 1-0 in 12 innings.

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks, Mr b.

[yank52]

what is going on with NPU?
lose 4 win 6 lose 5

I thought this was a dark horse team in this conference?
I'm now just estatic they beat Millikin 2 out of 3, because after Saturday's performance I see the future or just this year and I don't realistically see them winning another series.

Funny I thought this was the year they would go north of .500 but it seems they really are too close to the North Sider neighbors and its wait till next year.