If you have attended a softball game at Turners Falls High School and went to use the restroom behind home plate, you probably remember having to have your head on a swivel at all times, commonly hearing a roaring “heads up!” as the dangers of a foul ball coming for your head happened far too often.
Thanks to a hefty donation from Greenfield Savings Bank, that won’t be an issue any longer.
When the bank found out that Turners was looking for a donation to build a new, larger backstop behind home plate to make it safer for everyone attending games, President and CEO John Howland made a $17,600 donation to fund a new one, which will be installed and ready for use by the time the spring season rolls around.
“I was amazed and thankful when I found out,” Thunder softball coach Gary Mullins said. “I was extremely happy because times are tough at the school. We rely on donations if we need anything. It’s fantastic they stepped up.”
The old backstop was about 20 feet tall, not high enough to stop the many foul tips that happen throughout a game from flying overhead that cause safety concerns. This led to the school searching for a new one, beginning last February, one that would improve the school’s already impressive softball complex.
Turners looked to what the UMass softball team and Fastpitch Nation in Windsor, Conn., used for backstops, eventually finding one that would make the experience of watching the game both better and safer.
The one issue was the price tag of actually building a new backstop.
“We were looking at all the different facilities around and this is how it’s done,” Turners Athletic Director Adam Graves said. “We knew what we wanted and the next step was finding out how we can make it happen with the price tag being ridiculously high.”
Mullins got in touch with Warren Thomas, a former member of the Board of Trustees at Greenfield Savings Bank, who put him in touch with Howland.
The coach explained the benefits of the new backstop, as well as the tradition of the softball program which is one of the best in Western Mass on a yearly basis, and how it brings the community together.
Howland asked what he could do to help, and when Mullins said they needed money, he graciously funded the project. His donation covered the cost of the four new poles put into the ground, which raise the backstop to nearly 30 feet — 10 feet higher than before. The donation also covered the cost of the trucking to get the 1,200-pound poles to the field, all the hardware needed as well as the netting around it.
It took many community members to take down and install the new backstop.
Justin Demers and John Grace took charge of taking down and disposing of the poles that were previously in the backstop, digging them out of the ground. From there, Jason Salls, Fred Smith and Jason Liimatainen dismantled the old backstop,
Steve Knapp and Lee Laster then went and dug the new holes for the new poles, which are 40 feet tall and go 10 feet into the ground, and put the 1200-pound structures up.
David Bernard and Tom Dow of Graves Concrete donated the concrete and installed it to secure the poles in the ground.
Turners girl’s basketball coach Ed Marvell got a special order of Sonatube from Cowls Lumber in Amherst for the posts while Harris Rebar Co. in South Deerfield donated the rebar, with George Emery helping make that happen. Stash Kocenski provided security for the project.
“It was a community effort,” Graves said. “The big donation allowed us to get the ball rolling but there’s so many people to thank for getting this going.”
The project will be finished by the time the softball season rolls around in April. The bulk of the work is done with the poles in the ground, now the fence around it and the netting must be installed.
“The reason we built it was obviously for the safety of people,” Mullins said. “It happens 10 times a game where someone almost gets hit. Secondly, it’s a much nicer view watching the game. It’s been a project, but we went for it.”