Parks officials have voiced unanimous support for a plan that will see the main girls’ softball field get the same canopies over players’ benches that already grace boys’ youth and varsity baseball fields at Mead Park and Saxe Middle School.
The canopy that will go in at the girls softball field at Waveny known as the Orchard Field will be the same as this one at the varsity baseball field at Mead Park. Credit: Michael Dinan
New Canaan Baseball Softball Inc. will pay the approximately $15,000 cost to purchase the canopies and have them installed by a contractor, New Canaan Softball President Rob Moore told members of the Park & Recreation Commission at their Feb. 10 meeting.
“When you are talking about June, July and August, you’ve got 90 degree heat,” Moore said at the meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. “When it’s raining, why shouldn’t we be able to give the girls the same shade and comfort from the elements that the boys get?”
The “Orchard Field” at Waveny—the first one on the right as cars climb the crest of the hill coming from the South Avenue side—is home to the New Canaan High School girls’ varsity softball team, as well as youth and travel teams in town. Noting that Title IX requires the town to treat boys’ and girls’ sports equally, Moore said: “I think it’s a win for everybody. It’s a win for the girls. A win for the high school.”
It will take about eight weeks (conservatively) for the 10-by-20-foot canopies to arrive and then another couple of weeks to install the canopies, Moore said. As of now, the spring softball season is scheduled to open March 19, he said.
Park & Rec unanimously backed the project.
Commissioners asked whether the installation would involve any tree removal (no), whether the canopies need to stay up all year (no they can come down though the metal framework remains), whether the pillars that anchor the frame are dug into the ground (yes, they need to go down 30 inches) and whether the estimated $10,400 cost for two sets of canopies covered just the Orchard Field (right).
According to Moore, parents and coaches involved in softball to this point have brought their own portable tents to the park and placed them over the dugouts.
“It looks tacky, and as a resident, I personally would like it to look uniform across our fields and when people show up, there’s a much more professional look than when we are out there with our portable tents that we stick out,” he said.