First Impressions From Point Stadium

This weekend I'll have the honor of calling the last three days of the WVIAC Baseball Tournament.
Reid Amos -- the Voice of the WVIAC -- is unavailable due to obligations at his day job as West Liberty State's Executive Director of Media Operations. West Liberty is completing its transition to university status this weekend, which is a really big deal on the Hilltop. That'll keep Reid busy, so I'm pinch-hitting. So to speak.

The tournament is being held at historic Point Stadium in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It's my first visit here, and here are some unsolicited first impressions....

"The Point" is a multi-use facility; the host school, Pitt-Johnstown, plays baseball here in the spring, and there's high school football in the fall.
As such, the dimensions for baseball are quirky. It's just 290 down the lines, and only 336 to the alley in left field. There's an enormous fence on the left field side, 40 or so feet high, aimed at preventing a flood of cheap home runs. The uppermost 25 feet of the fence is wire mesh, supported by large, vertical steel columns.
That fence is crying out for a nickname. "The Green Monster" is already taken, so I was thinking of "The Mesh Monster" or "The Big Screen" instead. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Point Stadium rewards pull hitters, especially right-handers. But a ball hit straightaway will need a lot of juice to get out of the yard. It's 395 to the alley in right and 410 to dead center.

The playing surface is almost entirely artificial turf. The only dirt areas are the pitchers mound and home plate. Everything else -- infield, outfield, baselines, warning track, cutouts around the bases, all of it -- is turf.
That might offend some purists, but it has its benefits. An artificial surface can handle the tournament workload, with up to 11 games to be played in four days. It also takes rain well; tournament staffers tell me the field can be playable within only five minutes after a rain storm ends. The value of that quick of a turnaround is immeasurable in a weekend in which time is precious and an NCAA bid is at stake.
Artificial turf is also good news for the fielders, since it almost completely removes the possibility of a bad bounce.

Aside from the holy-cow-that's-deep dimensions between the alleys, Point Stadium is a hitters' park. Anything hit down the lines doesn't need to go far to get out; the artificial surface can turn seemingly routine grounders into singles and routine singles into extra-base hits. There's also not much foul territory, especially down the lines. That can keep at-bats alive longer than in many other parks.

The staff here is enthusiastic and really seems to enjoy being here. As a member of the media, I can tell you that means a lot.

Visually, Point Stadium is set in a very interesting area. It's called "The Point" because it sits at the confluence of the Stoneycreek and Conemaugh rivers, which combined to cut a deep valley into the western Pennsylvania hills. One such hill towers over the right field side of the stadium; Johnstown's old steeltown cityscape looms beyond center, and, across the street that runs parallel to the third base line is a series of abandoned steel mills that stand sentinel over what once was the economic lifeblood of the region.

Also, much of the movie All The Right Moves was filmed in Johnstown and at "The Point" (long before the installation of the artificial surface). What's more, it's just a long home run away from War Memorial Arena, home rink of the Johnstown Chiefs in the classic sports movie Slap Shot.

Time permitting, I'll bring you more thoughts from the WVIAC Tournament as the weekend goes along. You can hear every game, starting at 11:50 am Friday, online at smallcollegesports.com.