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The PIAA has pulled the trigger on switching venues for PIAA baseball and softball, moving both championships to Penn State University through 2014.
Medlar Field at Lubrano Park will be the PIAA's new baseball crib
PIAA executive director Brad Cashman said that price was not an issue – both Penn State and Altoona’s Blair County Ballpark, which has hosted the games since 2005, were about the same price – but the difference was in the details.
For instance, the PIAA baseball finalists could not access the locker rooms at Blair County Ballpark because the Altoona Curve is in season when the PIAA plays its championship games in mid-June. Even though the Curve obviously is not home when PIAA visits, it still keeps equipment in the locker rooms.
By contrast, the Class A State College Spikes do not begin their season until the PIAA championship games are complete.
Also, Cashman noted that at Blair County Ballpark, the players must use the bathrooms in the mezzanine because they don’t have locker room access. That won’t be the case at Medlar Field.
And Cashman said that Medlar Field, with 5,406 seats, might be better suited to the smallish PIAA crowds than Blair County Ballpark’s 7,210 seats.
“Most years Blair County Ballpark was bigger than what we needed,” Cashman said.
“But neither Balir County or Robb Field (softball’s host site since 1995) did anything to lose it,” Cashman said. “We might have outgrown the facility at Shippensburg a bit.”
Cashman acknowledged that he was excited by the prospect of bring the baseball and softball championships together on the same weekend for the first time in nearly two decades.
