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| SOFTBALL LINKS |
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Diamond Nation Tournaments Announced
by Dave
Thursday, January 28, 2010
There is an article on SpySoftball which consists of just a commercial announcement as follows:
"Rising Stars and Triple Crown Sports have announced two new tournaments - a summer event June 23-25, and, a fall event October 8-10, both at a new 10-field complex called Diamond Nation in Flemington, NJ.
The tournaments will be limited to 40 teams, and the sponsors hope to attract the top 16U and 18U teams from across the nation. (Flemington is 44 miles from Newark Airport.)"
That's a fairly simple message but several items should be included in order to convert this announcement into a complete statement of fact. First of all, the complex is definitely beautiful although it could have been laid out differently to make it easier to move from field to field. Personally, I favor quads to make the movement from field to field easier while also providing fans and college coaches the opportunity to see multiple games with just a few steps. Quads have issues such as when balls are fouled from one field onto another but I would take them over the arrangement at DN.
Secondly, Flemington is fairly close to Newark Liberty International Airport as the crow flies but it will most likely take you an hour or more to drive from one to the other in the best of traffic conditions. If you come in or leave at rush hour, you should budget two hours. , so You will be sitting out a lot of traffic lights along the most convenient routes. At times, you may get the opportunity to watch a single traffic light turn from red to green to red to green to red again! It is not the most convenient place to get to in New Jersey. Flemington is kind of out in a part of the state which nobody ever experiences on TV or in the movies. It is a less densely populated part of the state.
Third, the place is not a purely softball complex. It is really set up for baseball and the fields are converted to softball via the placement of fences and playing at one corner of the otherwise baseball setups where 60 foot bases paths are located. But the facts that these fields are used primarily for baseball and are somewhat inconvenient for softball is not necessarily fatal to the utility of the complex.
What may be fatal to the complex are a couple of practices by the owners of the facility, as well as the fact that the fields are 100% turf. Generally, at this complex, anyone aside from the players and coaches must pay an entrance fee. I have been to tournaments and showcases at which such a fee has been charged but usually the fee is either nominal or only applied to very large events such as a national championship tournament. The nominal fees were typically not charged by the organization hosting the tournament but rather the park itself which had significant facilities to maintain with taxpayer dollars. It is not fair to ask local taxpayers to foot the bill for maintaining fields during an event which largely draws people from far away. But DN is different because this is a commercial venture. They invested huge amounts to build this complex and are seeking a return on that investment. The charge for fans (parents) is rather hefty and the system under which, for example, a visitor can leave the complex and then return is not exactly state of the art, or, for that matter, well thought out.
Next, as part of the profi- making angle, teams are allowed to bring in just one cooler and no food. They aim to make all attendees purchase some drink and all food from the snack bars. The food at the snack bars is not necessarily good or what one would choose to eat when playing a multi-game day. But you are forced to either sneak in food - not easy - or buy whatever they have to offer at the snack bars.
Still the things I have listed are not fatal to many who wish only to play the best possible competition no matter what it costs and no matter how inconvenient the location. And while the tournaments do hope to draw a very high level of competition, the fact that the fields are turf ought to give teams cause for hesitation. Turf is great when natural fields are too wet to play. But at any other time, I would prefer to keep my players off it.
The problems that are encountered on turf are many. The most obvious issues involve ground balls. Most balls are hit with considerable spin in fastpitch softball. Turf does not act like dirt when a spinning ball hits it. Grounders are a little too true. If you put a team on turf for a year and then had them play on dirt, say at ASA, NSA, etc. nationals, you are looking for trouble. Your infielders will not be able to adjust back to the unpredictability and much different play of real dirt on a skin field. It isn't quite as bad as always playing on grass infields but it is rather different than playing on a conventional softball field.
Next, outfield play is different on turf vs. natural surface. We've played all sorts of grass including some amazingly well groomed fields in the Carolinas and Florida, some very nice but quite different type surfaces in Caifornia, some dreadfully hard ones in Ohio, some not very well groomed natural grass surfaces in several other places, etc. I have seen some artificial surfaces for softball fields that were very nice on which the outfield hops were quite similar to those on natural surface but such is not the case at DN. Ordinary hump back line drives and pops that fall to ground bounce inordinately high leading to misplays as well as extra base hits for balls that would easily be played back in for singles on other surfaces. Outfielders must play fairly deep because any ball that strikes the surface will run rather fast. Any single hit beyond a certain point is going to make it to the fence. Playing outfield at DN isn't at all like playing on natural surface or very good turf.
Finally, the pitching surfaces are not great. The turf itself is rather slick. Girls sliding into bases do not get any kind of rug burn because of the slickness. Instead, they find that they need to grab hold of the bases in order to avoid over-sliding the bags. This does not help pitchers find that point of resistance with their landing legs which they need to pitch well. Further, the pitching circle areas are a carpet overlay on the normal surface of the field. There is too much give in them. There is a sort of trampoline effect. Every pitcher I have talked to had something bad to say about the pitching area at DN.
I have nothing against Diamond Nation. I don't particularly care about the site's distance from Newark Airport nor that you have to buy food there. I can go a day without eating though I would rather be able to bring in my own water and Gatorade. It can be a little too expensive ov er a 3 or 4 day tournament to pay snack bar prices in order to avoid dehydration or heat exhaustion.
I understand the need to charge a fee to attendees at commercially maintained fields. I am OK with that as a general matter. If there is a nice place to sit to watch games, it's fine with me that I have to pay provided the fee is not exorbitant. The fees are too high at DN. There is not a convenient place to sit and watch. I would like to be able to come and go in accordance with my team's schedule. It is not very convenient to come and go at DN. Actually, it is kind of a hassle though hopefully they will get better at handling this.
I am happy for whatever softball facilities are built which enhance girls' abilities to play even when a summer is very rainy. Most of us east of the Mississippi suffered through last year playing much less frequently than we would have liked. Turf is great when you have nothing else playable. But given the choice between turf and a dry natural surface, I would rather have my girls on the natural one. You really do not get to see kids' and teams' abilities when you play this kind of artificial surface. This is more true at the highest levels. At least that's one man's opinion.
Additional Comment:
My wife just read this post and reminded me that parking was absolutely horrendous at this facility. I suppose I had forgotten that fact but now that I think of it, it was really bad. There was not a huge amount of teams there when we played but we struggled to find a parking spot. I can only imagine that with a large number of teams present the parking would be absolutely impossible. Hopefully they will rectify the parking situation before these tournaments are held since they cannot support the number of cars one would expect.
 
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