Enhancements for renamed Kannerstein Field underway
HAVERFORD, Pa. – Haverford College's baseball team will have a new-look facility when it opens the 2012 season. The new and improved baseball facility will be named Kannerstein Field in honor of Haverford's beloved former athletic director and head baseball coach, Greg Kannerstein '63, who passed away in 2009. Renovations and enhancements to the current field and its facilities have begun and are expected to be complete by October 2011.
"Greg Kannerstein was an icon at Haverford College and the modern-day father of our baseball family," says head baseball coach Dave Beccaria. "It's an extremely fitting and meaningful tribute to put his name on our baseball field. This renovation ensures that we'll have the kind of top-quality facility that is worthy of Greg's name."
Renovations for the facility begin with expanded seating behind home plate for fans and stretch outward to new outfield fencing and a new scoreboard.
Current seating capacity for Class of '16 Field and Roy Randall Diamond is at approximately 250 but the upcoming seating plan adds a new front row while also extending the stands nearly to each of the dugouts. The plan should add another 100 seats for fans of the Fords.
The entire backstop area will also be redesigned. The metal fencing behind home plate will be replaced with netting and a padded knee(-high) wall will be constructed from dugout to dugout. The changes around home plate will resemble many minor league baseball parks.
Players will enjoy a new surface as the entire field will be re-graded after new irrigation and drainage systems are installed. New sod will top off the improvements.
Beyond the new outfield fencing will be a new scoreboard which will bear the Kannerstein Field placard. Along with the normal game totals, the 27-feet wide scoreboard will include inning-by-inning run totals as well.
Outside the right-field fencing just beyond the Fords' dugout will be a roofed hitting facility which, at 50-feet by 90-feet, will house three turfed batting cages. The structure will utilize skylights to add natural lighting in the cages which will use the same turf used for the Swan Field outdoor facility.
"It's an exciting project that will certainly give us one of the very best Division III baseball facilities in the country," states Beccaria.
Clark Companies of Dehli N.Y., the same contractor that handled the Swan Field construction, expects the Kannerstein project to be complete by mid-October. The dedication ceremony, tentatively scheduled for Sat., April 21, will take place prior to the start of a Centennial doubleheader against visiting Gettysburg College.
As construction moves forward, a photo gallery covering the process will be available on the Photo Gallery page.
