Starke County Baseball and Softball League President Travis Markin discussed installing some electrical cords on a few of the diamonds in Wythogan Park during last week’s Knox Park Board Meeting.
Markin explained the league wants to put cords on diamonds two in three and said the electric lines are needed for pitching machines. Markin stated that the league would incur the cost of installation and said they want to bury the cords in order to prevent a tripping hazard.
Park Superintendent George Byer explained that sometimes field maintenance can interfere with such installations.
Byer said, “In past years, there have been several times that electric cords have been run out underneath there and when you drop a subsoiler in the ground to agitate it and kind of fluff it up, we hit the cords.”
Byer said they also ran into similar issues with damaging sprinkler systems that were unknowingly installed. Markin said he hopes to alleviate the lack of communication that existed between the league and the park board in the past to prevent future problems.
Markin asked how far down the cords would need to be buried in order for them to be out of the way of equipment. Byer said larger subsoilers that have been used in the past can go down as far as two and half feet but their machinery only extends about 5 inches into the ground.
Byer said trenching the lines about 15 inches in the ground and then encasing them in a conduit would be the best way to protect them. He also suggested marking exactly where the cords are installed.
