To the casual observer, Sun City’s Eakin Field, home of the community’s Softball Charter Club, is a beautifully landscaped site.
Some of the most exciting and entertaining sporting moments in Sun City take place on its lush acres: 12-inch and 16-inch Chicago-style softball games, special events honoring veterans, all-star games, the National Night Out celebration, skill competition, and the annual softball league playoffs in August.
Softball’s worst enemy, however, is rain.
As seen here, the grass pitch down, away from the infiled into the outfield, allowing for water from the infield to pool in the playing area. (Photo by Tony Pratt/Sun Day)
“We have had more than 50 rainouts each year for the last several years,” said Glenn Groebli, softball club president. “When it rains, water drains right onto the infield and into the shallow parts of the outfield.” When the field was built about the time Sun City opened, it was not a good design.
“The sidewalks and concrete pad that support the spectator seats running from behind third base to first base all pitch toward the field,” Groebli said. “We have a lip buildup in the shallow part of the outfield right behind the infield, and rainwater flows on the playing area instead of draining into the far outfield.”
This month, the softball club has launched a two-part water-control project to fix these problems.
“About 10 years ago, when we first noticed this problem, we started a field maintenance fund in our club,” Groebli said. “Everyone (about 250 club members) agreed to pay an extra $25 into the fund for one year. This also applied to all new members. We also took $10 from each annual registration, and built up a sizable fund.”
This spring, the club plans to spend about $11,000 on two water control projects. First, Groebli said, about 190 feet of corrugated drain tile is being installed underground in front of the spectator stands from past third base, behind home plate, and to just past first base, where it connects to the village storm sewer drain. This is designed to capture the water runoff from the sidewalks and seating area. Landscape Concepts, the same firm that now performs Sun City’s landscaping, was hired to do this.
Second, the club has hired Paul Ostrander, the Huntley Park District’s field supervisor, to remove (rototill) three feet of outfield turf and infield mix, install new sod and bring in new baseball sand mix, and pitch the lip to the outfield so water will drain away from the infield.
Both these projects are scheduled to be completed by the end of April.
“I’m grateful for the cooperation of our club members for supporting this work, and for our ground crews, who saved a lot of games for us in recent years with a lot of hard work,” Groebli said.
Groebli also said, “We are the main user of the field, so it’s our responsibility to fix it. We just decided to take care of this problem ourselves, and our members supported the projects.”
