PLYMOUTH — A commitment by the Plymouth Community School Corporation to the Plymouth Park Board means that a Plymouth landmark could be getting a face lift soon — but Mother Nature has had other ideas.
For almost a year now, Plymouth Assistant Athletics Director John Scott has headed up an effort to raise private funds to replace the original playing surface at Bill Nixon Field that has served remarkably well for the past 45 years.
The improvements at Nixon Field will include a total reconstruction of the infield and outfield. The current sod will be killed and peeled off along with the top soil. New top soil will be brought in and leveled before the area is seeded. The sprinkler system will be updated and the pitcher’s mound and home plate will be rebuilt. Plans also anticipate renovate work for the bull-pens.
“We were told we’d be able to get it done if we could find donations of $42,000,” said Scott. “Privately we’ve been able to get more than $26,050. We’ve had a tremendous response from former players wanting to help out. We simply asked them to give what they could — what they felt comfortable with. We’ve had some former players who’ve done very well for themselves in business, entertainment, many fields and we asked them to consider that. Many of them have really gone way above and beyond.”
Earlier in July, the Plymouth Park Board approved a second addendum to the agreement between the Plymouth Park Department and the Plymouth Community School Corporation. The addendum is an additional financial term to the agreement. In addition to the annual payments set forth in the initial agreement, the school corporation will pay a one-time payment in the amount of $25,000 to the park on or before Sept. 1 in recognition of the significant improvements to be made at the baseball park.
So the money is there. Unfortunately that renovation has hit a snag with the weather.
“Because of this excess rain we have had this summer, our contractor is behind on his scheduled projects by nearly a month,” said Scott. “Our project start date was scheduled for immediately after the Old-Timers Game scheduled on Saturday, Aug. 5, but because of the amounts of rain, that is not going to happen.”
The problem is allowing the proper time for all the grass seed to take root. With the late start, Scott said the group considered sod instead of seed for the project but decided against it.
“We were concerned with putting sod down and when we heard the price would be $11,000 more we were really concerned,” said Scott. “For a project like this we did not want to hurry it. We wanted it done correctly with time not being a factor. We felt by pushing it back to June, 2018, it made this project more feasible.”
With the changing of class alignments by the IHSAA there have been no assignments made for baseball semi-state rounds. The Pilgrims traditionally have hosted for that round at Bill Nixon Field and Scott says the start date would be after the semi-state in June to allow for that tournament to take place if Plymouth should receive that assignment.
