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A worker puts the finishing touch on the concrete blocks that make up the walls of the newly expanded home dugout at the Oglethorpe County baseball field. (Submitted Photo)
Mike Campbell was embarrassed by the state of his new home field when he took the Oglethorpe County baseball job last spring.
He said being in the old dugouts felt like “you were in a little cage” because of how condensed and small they were.
So Campbell, his players and others in the program recently renovated and expanded the dugouts and built two bullpen mounds.
“They were embarrassing,” Campbell said. “They were really small. They were unkempt. Just bad, they were just bad, so we expanded it.”
The previous bullpen, which was on the visiting team’s side, was on the field and had only one mound. The visiting and home teams' sides have been switched to accommodate the move, and the new bullpens were built outside the field.
“We’ll have a total of five pitching mounds,” Campbell said. “We’ll be able to do pitching work with multiple kids at a time versus just one kid at a time. We’ll be able to get our pitching work in without having to just sit around and wait for the next pitcher. We can have five pitchers going at the same time.”
In addition, a shed was built for field maintenance equipment.
The recent renovations build on the work that began last summer. The field was leveled to raise the pitching mound to its proper height and new sod was planted on the infield in July.
While the work on the field isn’t done — the outfield needs to be leveled and the visiting dugout needs to be expanded — Campbell said the field has had a significant facelift.
While he’s excited to have a more functional field, he’s just as excited for his new players, who have helped with the renovations and cleanup.
“There’s a lot of kids here, and I want them to have a place that they wouldn’t be ashamed of or embarrassed by. Something they could be proud of,” Campbell said. “Having a field that was in such disarray, and they said they were embarrassed when schools would come here because they would laugh at it and stuff.
“Now, they’ll have something to be proud of, something to work for, something, so they can take care of it. Something to help them be better people.”
While he’s still waiting for winter sports to wrap up so he can get more of his players back, Campbell’s ready to get started. He held team tryouts on Monday.
“Oh yeah, I’m ready to go,” Campbell said. “I wish we played tomorrow.”