Vets Field Repairs to Address Safety, Drainage

The logic was simple.

"I don't know about you," Hopatcong Councilman John Young said. "(But) I'd rather get hit with a foul tip than a home run."

That's most of the reason the borough hopes to invert the softball diamond, moving home plate to the current center field, before next fall. The move also would address the field's major drainage issue, Young said.

He also said the action would be cost-effective. Rather than buying poles and expensive nets that would require maintenance and, eventually, replacements, why not let balls launched from the softball field land in the woods instead of a soccer pitch, possibly causing injury.

"If you turn it, you still have a risk of a foul tip crossing over into the other fields," Young said. "But I think that risk is certainly much less than some big, strapping guy creaming a home run."

Young said the issue wasn't new to the borough. But when the men's softball leagues all but vanished, conversations died down.

But in recent years, several groups have approached the borough about starting a men's league, Young said. So since Hopatcong planned to install lights at the field this year, it figured it should complete the whole job.

Young said the inverted field would also lessen the field's drainage problem. Currently, he said, the right-field and first-base areas tend to flood. Under the new plan, flooding would occur far into the outfield.

"It would have less impact in the game, even if it stays wet," he said. "And we don't intend for it to stay wet. But if it's in bad condition, the affect on the game would be less."

Young said the field would still be larger than the high school's new field and could be used by the high school team and Little League softball.

"To me, it seems like the smarter move," he said.

Mayor Sylvia Petillo said at last week's council meeting that the borough set aside $50,000 for the work, which Young said would be performed by borough's Department of Public Works, and $10,000 for soft costs. That does not include the cost of the new light fixtures. The money would come from the borough's open space and recreation fund, which can be only used for enhancing recreational facilities, to acquire land for conversation or open space reasons and land preservation, according to state law.