LITTLE ROCK — Shortening the power alley in right centerfield is not the first time Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn has altered Baum Stadium to make the facility more attractive to recruits.
Growing grass or fighting the wind, Van Horn does whatever needs to be done. The thing with the grass came up years ago; the prevailing wind is more recent. On both fronts, Van Horn aggressively countered the very real criticisms of Arkansas’ home stadium.
In recruiting, a concrete remedy is not available when there are only innuendoes. Until Van Horn said something last month about dealing with negative recruiting, I thought the undercutting in recruiting was exclusive to football and basketball. Personally, I recall an amiable coach from one in-state school saying that if a golfer wanted to do such-and-such, he should be a Razorback.
Opened in 1996, Baum Stadium originally had Astroturf — the only baseball stadium in the Southeastern Conference with an artificial surface. Before that, there was a similar surface at George Cole Field for more than 20 years.
Hired before the 2003 season, Van Horn immediately began pushing for real grass. The hard-on-the-knees turf, he said, was hurting his recruiting.
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“I’m recruiting some really high-profile kids and they always ask, ‘What’s going on with your surface?” Van Horn told a reporter in the summer of 2003. “They don’t want to play on turf.”
In 2004, the Razorbacks played on rye grass. Since then, it’s been a hybrid Bermuda.
Lately, the knock on Baum was that it was 375-feet to clear the 8-foot high fence in the power alleys and that balls hit to right center tend to hang in the southwest wind.
Coaches recruiting the same left-handed hitters as Arkansas made sure that those players were aware of the wind and its effect.
A month ago, work began to bring in the fence by 10 feet.
“It should help us with some of the negative recruiting we’ve dealt with the last several years,” Van Horn said at the time. “It’s really gotten bad the last couple of years.”
Recruiting in baseball is more competitive than ever, Van Horn said, and “they’re using everything they can against you.”
It’s possible some of his better left-handed hitters through the years would not have been Razorbacks if they had been aware of the wind. Brought into play last year, toned-down bats exacerbate the situation.
Home plate at Baum is at the same spot as it was when the Razorbacks’ home was known only as George Cole Field and the Razorbacks were in the Southwest Conference. At the time, big ball parks were in vogue in the SWC.
In 1992, former UA baseball coach Norm DeBriyn got his first look at the facilities in the Southeastern Conference. Most were bandboxes. He said he always thought 375-feet to right center was legitimate, but, in retrospect, he should have configured something less when plans were drawn up for Baum.
Since then, he’s probably apologized to his friend and former major leaguer Kevin McReynolds for the home runs McReynolds lost in the breeze in right-center.
The shorter fence works both ways — for the hitters and against the pitchers. In Arkansas’ favor, this Razorback team, a preseason top 10 in all polls, is loaded with pitching. The season begins Feb. 17 with a three-game series against Villanova. Chances are, the wind will be blowing in from right field.
Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.