Andrews Field finally gets a break

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This article was published 30/08/2020 (2086 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After 30 seasons, Andrews Field has finally enjoyed a little rest.

The ballpark didn’t host a game this year for several reasons, all of which added up to better conditions moving forward.

“We’ve given it a chance to recoup,” president Nate Andrews said. “The grass in some of the areas has recovered beautifully. We were forthright with the AA league and the midgets on why we were doing that. We certainly would have loved to showcase what we’ve done so far with the netting but everybody understood. Sumner Field is wide open, with no unlocking of gates. It just made the whole season for us, based on skeleton crew and skeleton budget, quite a bit easier for us to manage.”

And the field certainly didn’t mind.

“It didn’t hurt it,” Alex Campbell agreed with a chuckle.

The pair remains the volunteer duo that do the most to keep the outstanding facility in tiptop shape.

With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting in March, however, they had a new level of uncertainty to deal with regarding their primary tenant, the Expedition League’s Wheat City Whiskey Jacks.

“We both kind of expected at the start of April that it wasn’t going to happen,” Andrews said. “We could just see where it as going to end up, but you don’t actually know until you know.”

The Expedition League held off on making its final call on the season until early May. With a reduction in attendance set by the province and then the border closing, the Whiskey Jacks initially searched for a temporary home in the United States. When that couldn’t be done, they called it quits on the season.  

Meanwhile, Andrews and Campbell held off on hiring staff that might have to be laid off soon after.

“The Whiskey Jacks have exploded our workload,” Andrews said. “Last year we pretty much had Al full time and Greg (Thompson) full time and we had a kid almost full time. If we went ahead and hired kids, we had to be respectful to them because we might have to fire them right away. That was the hardest thing, just waiting in limbo.”

With their primary tenant gone for 2020, the Andrews Field crew had to make some tough decisions about whether to allow play or not. They decided to let it recover.

“It certainly is hard,” Campbell said. “You see it here and you want people to be on it. We’re pretty proud of it with the condition it’s in. It got beat up pretty bad through the winter so we overseeded the sidelines on our infield. This is what we have. It’s actually been quite beneficial.”

The daily cleanup that would be required in bathrooms and around the facility to meet COVID-19 guidelines was also was a factor in their decision.

But the opportunity for the grass to finally get a break was a big part of their reasoning.

“We have a short growing season,” Andrews said. “When you have games all the time like we had last year, and we went through a heat spell, to be able to get enough water on the field is tough on us. The infield dirt also gets impacted by that. As much as the grass needs it, sometimes you’re making a maintenance project for yourself if the infield gets too much water on it. This year between the storms and really treating it good, we’ve been able to the turf base sticking back up. It gets it ready for going forward. It’s not an advantage most people have.” 

The list of potential renovations in future years remains long for Brandon’s best ballpark.

In a perfect world, they could write cheques and fix problems as they cropped up. But with limited resources — they receive funding from the city and donations from a variety of sources — they are constantly juggling competing needs.

Some noticeable changes have already been made. The biggest is a massive new $105,000 backstop netting system, put into place last fall, using $35,000 from the Brandon Community Foundation, which was matched by Gord and Diane Peters. The city then stepped up for the other $35,000.

It replaced the existing 24-foot netting with a 30-foot net that should keep a lot more foul balls on the diamond.

They also received $14,000 from a Red River Mutual initiative called ‘Spruce Up Your Story’, which designated money to “well-worn and well-loved community spaces across Manitoba and Saskatchewan”.

They ran out of money when water testing in the ground changed their piling procedures, and still had to finish the dugouts and along the backstop. 

“We were in a big rush to get this project done for the Whiskey Jacks season at that time before COVID was even really a thing,” Andrews said.

The backstop will be padded, as will posts in front of the dugouts. In addition, netting will be installed into the middle of the dugout posts for player safety.

If the facility is going to create excitement in the community, Andrews realizes the Expedition League still has to show it’s here to stay, and a major new event might also help.

“We have to prove that this summer collegiate stuff is going to go long term,” Andrews said. “We certainly want to get this place ready for bids. I’ve talked to Brandon First about some baseball opportunities. I’ve been heavily involved with the curling opportunities and I would love to see some sort of baseball event come back to the city. It re-energizes the baseball community, but also just the social fabric in general.”

He noted a big event would also potentially unlock some funding sources.

They won’t have any trouble spending money.

Lighting is a big issue. They don’t use them a lot, so they have lasted, but with the advent of LED lighting, that day may also eventually come when they have to be upgraded. Unfortunately, that’s at least a $300,000 job. If Brandon did land an international event, there are guidelines on the foot candles the lighting must provide, so that job would be a must.

In addition, the scoreboard was installed when the park opened and has a 1987 serial number on it. Generally, they have about 20-year lifespans.

“We’ve got our money’s worth out of that scoreboard,” Andrews said. “We don’t have any immediate plans that we need to change it. We’re quite happy with it, but there is going to be a day come when it goes and it’s not fixable. Then what are you going to do? We need to have that backup plan in place.”

The city did set some money aside for a much needed upgrade to the sound system, but when the pandemic hit, that money was put on hold and deferred.

“It was like chicken and egg for everybody,” Andrews said. “We were having money held back and then we didn’t know if we could pull the trigger on stuff. From a volunteer base, we were just kind of last minute on everything and that was probably the most frustrating thing we had to deal with, the unknowns of money and if things were going to happen. Once we knew (the Whiskey Jacks) weren’t coming, we eased off on our pressure.”

Andrews noted a laundry list of potenial upgrades that need to get done to the field, when time and money allows. 

The side areas along outside of the fence, which are gravelled, need a lot of maintenance to combat weeds, so laying some Geo Tech would save volunteer hours. Some finishing rock would also dress the areas up, Andrews said.

The parking lot could be repaved. The original plans also had parking along the first-base line, although Andrews notes people find a spot to park so that isn’t a priority.

The stands along the first-base line have been removed but the third-base bleachers are fine — for now.

The building itself also has some issues.

It will need a better power supply one day, with more capacity and surge protection. The kitchen has old equipment, and the plumbing also needs a major upgrade.

With no insulation, the building needs to be winterized every year. Each spring when the water is turned back on, pinhole leaks inevitably surface in the pipes.

The field also needs attention, which will start with laser grading.

The silt-based dirt they used in the infield was migrating over the baselines through wind and water, creating small humps on the other side in foul territory between the plate and first and third base.

The diamond uses a conical design with its high spot on the mound and flowing down in every direction, but over time, with the silt buildup, it creates a false impression of where the low spots actually are.

“It was done that way when it was originally built but it’s been a hand-eye job ever since for 31 years,” Andrews said with a chuckle. “If we could even get that back to the way it’s supposed to be, you wouldn’t see those big puddles after a rain storm, which causes us hours of work. With a team like the Whiskey Jacks that has 32 games and we’re a little low on bodies to have a field tarp, that sort of small detail saves a lot of hours and a lot of materials that we have to put in to dry it.”

The field also has a drainage issue at the outfield fence, because the ditch on the other side has been allowed to grow inand it simply doesn’t have the capacity to hold as much water anymore.

“A lot of times the water is backing into centrefield, probably coming out 75 or 100 feet after a big rain,” Campbell said. “Of course how often do you get four or five inches of rain in a short period of time, so that’s been a challenge.”

The grounds-keeping equipment they use is also wearing down. They purchased it 13 years ago after Andrews’ father Neil died and donations poured in to upgrade the facility, which is now named after him.

“If we can get some investment from the city and some other partners just to help us get back to a point where we have a little bit of capital improvement again, I think you would see some life jump back into the group,” Andrews said. “We would certainly like to invite some people into our group. I don’t know if I have another 20 years in me.”

And that might be the biggest problem of all. If the field’s key volunteers fall away out of frustration and fatigue, it would be nearly impossible to find anyone willing to put the same number of hours and passion into the field that Campbell and Andrews have.

“As things wear out, you start to lose your vim and vigour a little bit,” Andrews said. “Personally, we’ve probably done a good job of saving our city a lot of tax dollars on the operation of the facility by doing it the way we’ve done it. We’re pretty proud of it, but there are starts to be a point where things start to wear out and break and you lose your passion when you’re dealing with problems more than just making the field nice.”

“It’s not just the equipment that wears out.” Campbell added.

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