Anyone else see this on reddit or other channels? It was a fun distraction. How about strange fields in Iowa that people know of?
Weird Baseball Fields
- Thread starter throwittoblythe
- Start date
I think I saw DM East's field listed on the Twitter thread about this.
The oddest one I played on was the HS field in Dyersville, IA (not the Field of Dreams field). It used to double as their FB field as well. It's roughly 310 ft to right center, 410ft to left center, and 312ft down the LF line.
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I'll also add the old Jones County field in Monticello, IA. While the field itself wasn't odd, the location was. It was located inside the grandstand area on the Jones County fairgrounds. Notice that it's on the infield of the dirt racetrack. The field has since been replaced with a modern field over by the HS.
Wow, lefty power hitter's wet dream.
/r/baseball was on this kick the last couple weeks and it was pretty interesting. Makes me want to go back in time and see a game at the polo grounds.
I thought some of the fields down here were bad growing up. When I was younger, before I played HS, I remember schools having their football fields in the outfield. I remember Cardinal and Mormon Trail. Seems Russell had a cattle crossing through their outfield.
Our catcher hit a BOMB in the playoffs one year against Dyersville. Hardest hit ball I ever saw from the field. It hit the LCF wall on the fly, so it easily went over 400 ft and would've been way gone in any other HS park. He was crazy slow and managed only a triple.
I hear there is a strange field near Dyersville where you can hear voices coming from the cornfields
...but in all seriousness (and off topic), is there any update on the White Sox vs Yankees game scheduled to play there this year? I really hope it is played. That would be great exposure for the state. I think it is scheduled for Aug. 13.
This reminded me of another one I played at in Balltown, IA. Not weird dimensions, but there is no continuous outfield fence, just a line of trees. There's also a creek that runs through that forest that balls would go into. The adjacent farm had cattle graze the outfield so our outfielders would have to navigate the cow pies during games.
Great Thread.
As a HS baseball ump in Iowa for 10 years, there’s some fantastically weird ones all over the state.
As a player, Ole RRMR (Rockford) used to have a WHITE fence they moved back and forth in the outfield depending on if it was a SB or BB game because the fields overlapped. I hit what was called a Ground rule 2B and I swear to this day it cleared the fence.
As a HS baseball ump in Iowa for 10 years, there’s some fantastically weird ones all over the state.
As a player, Ole RRMR (Rockford) used to have a WHITE fence they moved back and forth in the outfield depending on if it was a SB or BB game because the fields overlapped. I hit what was called a Ground rule 2B and I swear to this day it cleared the fence.
Playing baseball on football fields used to be common for small schools, besides the two places you named, Harmony, Moravia, were the same way. SEW did not even have an outfield fence, and they allowed parking in center field. One time we had to look under a car to retrieve the ball, and it was still in play.
Our town played our Babe Ruth league games on the JV field which shared space with a softball field. It was really fun when you had games going on at both fields at the same time. More than once, we'd hit a ball onto the softball field in the middle of their game and the OFer would have to run into the softball field of play to retrieve the live ball.
Back when Twin River Valley was still a school we played against them in Gilmore City one year. Left field line and part of the fence was their school building.
I remember playing Twin River Valley on their home field. Dallas Clark hit a long homer over the school building that probably still hasn’t landed.
Haven’t been able to find a good pic, but the HS baseball field in Pleasantville, Iowa had a huge hill in deep left field before the fence. They had worked with the land they had and decided to put a hill in left field rather than have a short porch.
Thanks! Looking at that pic, huge may have been an overstatement, but it sure looked pretty big from the dugout.
I don't remember how it was pre-renovation (2006ish) but Algona High if the ball is hit to the left field fence you can only see the left fielder's head because it falls off so much. You also may get interference from trees that hang over the fence. The right field fence feels like it's about 170 feet from home plate because of a railroad track.
We played somewhere that the flag pole was in play but I can't remember where. Carroll maybe?
We played somewhere that the flag pole was in play but I can't remember where. Carroll maybe?
Was going to mention this one. They play BB with west bend now. Son played left there one game. Besides the school being the wall, about halfway from third to the fence starts a nasty uphill grade. Kid said any hit out there was horrible to chase because as you ran you would keep going up a foot in height here and there and it was hard to run and not fall plus tracking the ball was awful.
