Yesterday at 2:30pm (76.5 hours until game time), the City of Tampa decided to expand on what that issue was. Apparently, the large oak tree behind the home plate bleachers fell over, crushing said bleachers and taking down some lines with it. It isn't clear what part of the light system was damaged (transformer? power supply? Dilithium crystals?), but it was told to GKB that it won't be fixed any time soon. Naturally, Johnny asked: "Well how long ARE we talking here?" To which a city official replied: "Well something similar happened to another field once and it took a few months."
So... Doc Nance field does not have lighting for "a few months." Let me be the first to say... if the city wanted to have these lights fixed tomorrow, they would be. However, I imagine the bureaucracy and red-tape required to hire a vendor to come fix the problem is a slow one. The delay might even be related to quarterly budget issues. I'm speculating at this point... but the city sure as hell got the tree out of there ASAP (photos below). Then again, it seems Tampa has an abundance of tree trimmers while being a bit light on fire-ant killers.
Which leads us to our next issue: what about the rest of the season? Securing Doc Nance was difficult enough, requiring a select few of us to convince everyone it was 1) large enough 2) centrally located 3) not rapey 4) only a little stabby 5) decently secluded 6) able to handle all our cars and 7) available for rental. Any other field GKB finds at the last second will easily not meet a handful of those seven points.
Are we fucked? You bet. Proper fucked? Maybe not.
To add to the madness of finding a replacement field, it turns out the City of Tampa doesn't have one park manager. Parks are divided up by region and controlled by different people. So the guy that runs Doc Nance can really only tell us about the availability of fields in the immediate area. Other options require multiple phone calls, messages and waiting for contact (which started immediately as soon as we were told the bad news yesterday). I personally went to two fields after work to take measurements.
Ultimately, GKB just needs to pick a place... and then brace for the shit-storm our group is nationally known for.
Johnny did find a few fields that are the size of Doc Nance (or close), but all of those were either not available for Thursdays or are not rented out to private groups outside of Little League. So for this week (if not more) we're playing at Taylor Field (611 W. Indiana Ave, Tampa, 33603), which is a few blocks north of Doc Nance on the other side of the cemetery. Of course... this field isn't big enough for us. It appears we can only tightly fit two games at once. So the schedule is changing, and we'll have three time slots of 6:30pm, 7:30pm and 8:30pm. This is no different than we had with WAKA a couple of years ago. The NEW schedule will be posted tonight. Only teams who currently have a 7:15pm game are eligible for the 6:30pm slot. So while it sucks, you only have to show up 45 minutes earlier (this is our way of making Frank late to games).
We're going to have to just make the most of it. In the meantime, email Tyrus and ask him what he used to cut down that tree.
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| Drunk Bull |
5 comments:
Summit Bay Construction
General Contractor License Number CGC1509473 checking in:
Picture #1 is a light pole transformer, most likely 240V. These are like the green boxes you all as school children used to sit on while waiting for the bus. They step down the power to the light poles and have quite a long lead time to order and install (4-6 weeks normally) So no BS from the City there, although they might have "pull" and can jump to the front of the line if a real emergency comes up, but I dont think "ppl want to play kickball dammit" qualifies.
So the real question should be "Why did this tree fall?" We've had some windy days the past 4-5 days but pine trees are normally solid. No lightning has occured recently.. Hmm maybe we should get a tree arborist to play CSI and figure out if this tree truely "fell" down.
Nice try Waka, Ty, Korb, MLoop, (insert others here), we will prevail!
Kick Ball Society rules!!!
Can we play on the football field side of the PAL fields? I'm pretty sure their parking lot won't be full on Thursday.
KBS finishes up their season in 9 days. The right people to talk to are available for contact. Lights and field size are no problem.
I know it's not "centrally located" as much as peeps want, but it's at least a feasible replacement option in the interim.
Love the pics.. Especially the splintery bleachers
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