With a rake and some white chalk, Doug Heeter went to work, preparing the area around home plate at Stancill Park.
For high school baseball coaches like Heeter, the duty is often as much about groundskeeping as it is about running practice or calling for a hit-and-run.
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“I?m kind of the grounds crew before the game, and I try to get the guys to help out after the game,” said Heeter, Havre de Grace?s head coach.
Heeter?s Warriors play at Stancil Park, a Little League complex about two miles from the school.
“It?s one of the good fields in the county, we try to take as best care of it as we can,” Heeter said.
The field is small by most standards, and has a train track behind the left field fence that routinely welcomes a field-rattling, high-speed commuter train. Beyond the track is an exit ramp bridge for nearby Route 40, which provides an interesting backdrop to the facility.
Havre de Grace is lucky, though. The partnership with the Little League field gives the team a solid place to play. Not too far north, Harford Tech is struggling to claim a home field, despite an agreement with Harford Community College to use the two-year school?s complex.
“We do some work for them and they let us use their field,” Cobras coach John Watson said.
The field at Harford Tech is small, with fences set at shorter than 300 feet for most of the perimeter of the outfield. And there are sinkholes in numerous locations. For now, the varsity avoids it, but the junior varsity calls it home.
“It fits the needs for a JV program but for a varsity program it?s unacceptable,” Watson said.
The school is scheduled to have a new athletic complex built on its property in Campus Hills ? with a focus upon a much-needed football stadium, complete with lights.
“Every team in this county has had a place to play forever, and ours is the only school to farm out to play somewhere else or are forced to play on inferior fields,” Watson said.
For now, Watson?s players and other Harford Tech students are very involved in lining and maintaining all the fields at the Cobras? complex.
The same is true at North Harford, where head coach Tim Larrimore benefits from assistant coach Jeff Burrows? sports management class.
“His kids go out and line the fields,” Larrimore said. “We have a lot of baseball players in those classes. They take a lot of pride in that.”
Havre de Grace?s campus just underwent a makeover, including a number of fields for Parks and Recreation use. Included in that is a baseball field. But the Warriors will continue to play at Stancill for the foreseeable future.
“It ranks right up there,” Heeter said. “We?re blessed to be able to play here.”
