Thursday night I played softball at U.S. Cellular.
No, not that U.S. Cellular. (The above photo is one that I took when I was in Chicago last summer.)
Just up the road from where I live, U.S. Cellular sponsored the building of what may be the finest public sports facility in the country. It just opened a couple weeks ago, and last night was my team’s first game on the new field.
We played under the lights on the championship field which has fences 315 feet from home plate. Lucky for us we weren’t on one of the other fields, all of which have the fences 300 feet away as the other team hit about four balls that would have been over those fences. We hit only one that went more than 300 feet.
It was the closest game I’ve ever been in. We went 10 innings and finally won 7-6. That was the first time we led all night. We battled back from 2-0, 4-2, and 6-4 deficits to come out victorious and improve our record to 3-0. The game was far more exciting than what can be said in writing so I will just leave it at that.
The above picture isn’t from our actual game (nor did I take it), but it does show the surface of the field. The views around the place are actually much better than what you see in this photo. Maybe I’ll take some better ones when we play our next game.
The sports complex is easy to spot from I-5 between Medford and Phoenix, but not so easy to find if you want to drive there since it isn’t on any maps (yet), nor are there any signs pointing the way. To get there you need to be on Highway 99. Between Lowry and Stage is an unnamed road heading off to the east. That is the road you take to get to the new softball fields.
Posted on May 30th, 2008 under Oregon. Tags: baseball, Chicago, directions, jackson county, pictures, recreation, rogue valley, softball, US Cellular Community Park. Comments Off on Softball in Medford, Oregon
