Butterfield Park, Elmhurst College

Well, I have seen worse parks, but not many worse than Butterfield Park. Wow, it might not even be worth playing t-ball there. It is in the middle of a community park, they have almost nothing there for baseball. There are a few banners hung that say Elmhurst baseball, and the back of the dugouts say that, but that is about it.

The outfield fence is just that a fence with a blue banner hung around it. The stands, well I guess you can call the small things that people were sitting on stands. They are right behind home plate with poles in front of them for the backstop. The college hung a banner on the bottom half of the backstop, so if you sit on the lower part of the stands you can't see anything. There are now concessions and the bathrooms are a little room out by the tennis courts., Parking, you want to park here?, well there is a very small lot behind the left field wall. The bigger? lot is between the first base line and a playground. The park is built down a little from the street, thankfully for that today as it was windy. It is basically right off of Butterfield road, you just have to navigate some residental streets to get to the parking.

                                                          This is the back of the dugouts

The playing field it self, wow, where do I start. There is a huge lip on the front of the dirt in the infield that really made grounders interesting today. The field really looks like maybe a little league park, with not much upkeep. The grass is well iffy at best at not even being there. The infield dirt is all over the place, with huge piles of it by short and first. Behind home plate is a wreck with little fix me ups of dirt every where.

                                           This is the view from the stand behind home plate

The dugouts are kinda weird. As they look like bus stop huts rather than dugouts. The have a complete front and a window to watch the game. The ends are where the opening are. Also the pressbox is located down past third base in a stone building that is about two stories high.

                        In the fore ground is the home dugout and the building behind the fence is the press box.

The scoreboard is a little league board, that I am actually suprised it works, and even has lights. The game itself well, I left after a few innings because of the score and the incoming weather threat. It was 8-0 Elmhurst when I left in the third inning. The one memorable thing is that a foul ball hit and broke a light. The light poles are about fifty feet up, and the ones near the plate are between home and the bases, but before the dugout areas. Well a ball got up there and boom, broke one of the lights, glass came flying down all over the place and there was a big delay in the game as the Elmhurst team had to clean up the glass before play could resume.