With the 2017 season quickly approaching for the Long Beach State Dirtbags, the past few weeks of bad weather in Southern California have been detrimental to Blair Field, forcing the team to make adjustments.
“It’s been hard to build up routines not being consistently out here,” head coach Troy Buckley said. “You can’t do anything about it. We just try to control what we can control and deal with it.”
The slew of rain-soaked days in the last month has hampered the team’s ability to work on things like baserunning and taking batting practice on the field. While these fundamentals are crucial to the success of any team, the Dirtbags claim to be making up for the lost time on the field.
“It really hasn’t affected us at all,” senior infielder Jeff Nellis said. “We have this brand new ‘cathedral’ they built for us and were able to get in there and get any work that we need done.”
Nellis and the rest of his team jokingly refer to the six new covered batting cages as the “cathedral” due to its sheer size. The cages are covered, lit, and have the ability to become one open space that is close to a regulation sized infield.
“We haven’t really missed any days thanks to the new cages,” Buckley said. “They’ve been getting after it pretty good in there.”
The “cathedral” isn’t only there to benefit position players and hitters. Pitchers have also been able to utilize the space to take care of their business.
“We’ve been able to do our throwing program in there, work on [pitcher’s fielding practice], pickoffs; it’s beneficial for everyone,” sophomore right hander Chris Rivera said.
While the Dirtbags take advantage of the new facilities, head groundskeeper Rene Garcia and
his crew get to work as well.
“It’s been tough. We have an old tarp that is leaking, and with the season a week away we’re just trying to keep the infield as dry as we can,” Garcia said.
Garcia also works for the Los Angeles Dodgers and claims the grounds crew’s similar maintenance techniques used at major league parks has helped manage the inclement conditions.
“Even though it’s an old field, we’re trying to change that by changing our maintenance techniques,” Garcia said.
With a professional-style grounds crew and top-of-the-line facilities, the Dirtbags will do everything they can in the next week to prepare for its opening series against Oklahoma Feb. 17-19.
“We still have some work to do,” Buckley said. “There’s some extra things we need to go over and we need to execute everything we have already worked on better.”
Nellis says there is one positive that has come out of the rainy days: “Today was like our 20th time pulling the tarp since coming back from break, so we’re getting really good at it.”