5. Cardinal Stritch
The Cardinal Stritch baseball field may not look too obscure but upon closer inspection there is a lot out of the ordinary. For the starters there is no consistent home run fence. The fence in the rightfield is a chainlink fence that stops in dead center. The leftfield fence is not complete and is property of each individual homeowner. Meaning in some parts the ball will role out for a ground-rule double while in others it will bounce of the wall and remain fair. It is also about 460ft. to dead center, so unless the MLB home run derby is in town don’t expect any long bombs.
4. Maumee
Maumee has an odd field given how the center field wall gives the field an actual baseball “diamond” shape. Hitting a homerun dead center would be the same distance as hitting a homerun off the foul pole at just about 330ft. each. The field also buts right up against the track so runners and joggers beware.
3. Toledo Waite
The dimensions of Waite’s field don’t seem out of the ordinary, and you’d be right. What makes this field odd, other than being crammed in by two different roads, is the fact there is actually a hill in left and left-center field. Outfielders trying to track down a fly ball often trip on the incline. Meanwhile players that look at the incline take their eye off the ball and lose track of it in the air.
2. Swanton
Memorial Park in Swanton shows what can happen when there is no home run fence. Rightfield is bordered by Ai Creek while leftfield is borddered by an active road. A righfield homerun can be as short as 300 feet while a shot to deadcenter would have to travel a staggering 500 feet! Per rules the sidewalk in leftfield and the water in rightfield are the official homerun barriers so outfielders can not go past those boundaries. This also means there are multiple trees and lightpoles that are within fair territory.
1. Vanlue
By far the weirdest of the bunch, Vanlue decided that two sports are better than one and have a portion of their track running though the outfield. There are two swinging metal gates that allow runners to pass through the homerun fence in order to do their workouts. The track actually gets as close as 230 feet from home plate so the ball will cross passes with it many times. Oh, and don’t hit a foul ball left or it will go straight into the road.
