Training facility back after long closure

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This article was published 21/09/2020 (2084 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If there was one small bright spot for Faron Asham with the sewer backup that closed his business for two months, at least it came in the summer.

The owner of TC365, a baseball and softball training centre attached to Tri-Star Screenprinting on College Avenue that opened a couple of years ago, was essentially forced to start over after a massive storm drenched Brandon on June 28 and the business was flooded with sewage.

“It really took out all of the turf — this is all brand new turf now — it took out the electronic pieces of one of our batting machines and basically anything that was down on the ground we had to replace,” Asham said.

“It was time-consuming and we’re still not quite finished but hopefully we’ll be fully operational by after this weekend.”

Asham was actually in Winnipeg when it happened. He had someone coming in to do maintenance on machines, and when the worker found the ankle-deep mess, he called Asham.

“He said you may want to come down here and sent me pictures,” Asham said. “I told him to get out and came back and here we go.”

The problem occurred in the facility’s washroom, which is right by the front desk as you walk in, and below the second storey where players or parents can sit and watch what’s going on.

Happily, Asham was fully insured and the company he deals with was excellent. He was still hit by a hefty deductible, so he’s not escaping completely.

The final job to be finished was a piece added to the softball pitching machine last night that will modify it to make it fully automated.

“We kind of built ‘er back up to where she was,” Asham said. “We’ve kind of run out of space again and we’ll see if we can’t get a bigger space somewhere in the future.”

Thankfully, the sewage didn’t get past a door into Tri-Star, where it could have done more extensive damage. But it did head in the other direction and hit a storeroom full of Triple Crown inventory. All their baseball stock, including uniforms and balls, had to be written off.

“We took a hard hit,” Asham said. “We basically got wiped out and had to start all over.”

He didn’t hear of any other buildings in the area suffering similar issues.

His training facility, which is located in the old Westman Journal warehouse, was out of commission for most of the summer. But Asham certainly wasn’t. He was touched by how his patrons accepted the news of TC365’s temporary closure and reached out to him anyway.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Asham said.

“They were missing their time and their routine in coming in but we were able to get outside and continue with that. I’ve been coaching some of them last summer too and you maintain that player base and we maintain the clientele. You do see a little bit of a drop-off but not as much as you would think. It will be nice once word’s out again that we’re going to be back up and running. From what I understand, we’re going to be busy.”

Thankfully, baseball and softball are played outside in the summer, so there were some alternatives available to him.

“We continued on as best we could,” Asham said. “We had a nice agreement with Nate (Andrews) and the Andrews Field group over there so we were able to go and do some individual lessons outside and keep the service to the community going.”

Asham, who has coached since 1985 and is a member of the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame, noted that just because people can play outside doesn’t mean his business entirely drops off.

“Once you’re into a playing cycle, everyone runs into a slump and everyone comes in and wants a quick tuneup and a little bit of a swing fix,” Asham said. “We’ve been pretty steady. Obviously the winter months it’s very steady with Softball Manitoba and Baseball Manitoba renting and running some clinics through here, and players in the off-season wanting to hone their skills. If they want to reconstruct their swing, winter is the time to do it.”

Because the facility caters to both sports, they have a wide clientele ranging from young girls in softball to veteran senior AA baseball players.

Asham has been in Brandon for 20 years, and can’t think of any similar indoor facilities.

“The uniqueness of this is that you can have an individual lesson or rent the facility and come in and hit off the machines for an hour or 30 minutes or whatever you want to do,” Asham said. “Everything in here is automated. You book your time online, come in and we’ll be here for you.”

The business has a pair of batting cages — one is 20 feet by 20 feet and the big one is 42-feet long,16-feet wide and 20-feet tall — with netting that can be lifted to the ceiling to allow pitching practice.

The softball specific machine throws up to 80 miles per hour, with fastballs, changeups, curveballs and rise balls available. It can be programmed for 30-pitch sequences to mimic a real at-bat. The baseball machine throws straight fastballs at up to 92 mph, but it changes location with every pitch.

When Asham works with youngsters, a 45-minute lesson includes about 400 swings, so it’s a good workout.

“One of the other options that has come out of this is we’re looking at offering a membership schedule for patrons to purchase time slots per month on annual basis,” Asham said. “It’s very similar to a golf course where you’re going to book your tee times. You come in and book your hitting times so it’s some reduced pricing on that for our members only, which would give them some special options as well for the purchase of clothing and equipment and some prime-time spots.”

But all that is in the future. For now, Asham is just happy to soon be reopening his doors, and thankful to be in the baseball business.

“It’s been a nice ride,” Asham said. “It all comes down to the people that you meet and some people influencing your decision in a good way and saying ‘This is what we need, let’s try this.’ We noticed a gap in the service in the area so we made it happen.

“If you build it, they will come, right?”

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