Tucson, Arizona – The Arizona Heat is getting ready to begin their second season in the National Pro Fastpitch League. The first step is to get their home stadium, Hi Corbett Field, transformed from a baseball field to a softball field. This three week process will involve a lot of change for the historic field located in Tucson, AZ. Head Groundskeeper, Rick Hourscht, in his 25th year working at the stadium said, “This basically requires us to rebuild from scratch.”

The eight man grounds crew has already begun the project, by taking out the outfield grass and lowering the dirt 3 inches. Next, they will put 110 tons of a sand, dirt, and mulch mix over the outfield area, which will then require 11,000 square feet of sod to be placed on top of that. The outfield reconstruction alone will take a week to be completed.

After the completion of the outfield, the grounds crew will switch focus to the infield. A softball infield is significantly smaller than a baseball infield, so this also requires quite a bit of reconstruction.
First they must take out the grass infield, because a softball infield consists of only dirt. The pitching mound will also be leveled off and moved forward so that it is 43 feet from home plate as apposed to the 60 feet 6 inches for baseball. The bases will also be moved from 90 feet to 60 feet. The change will require 45-50 yards of screen top soil to be poured on the infield. This process will take anywhere from 7-10 days to complete.

The final step is the outfield fence which will be put up after the rest of the field has been changed. The dimensions will be: 210 feet to the right and left field lines and 230 to straight away centerfield.

About National Pro Fastpitch
National Pro Fastpitch is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The league, created to give elite female fastpitch players the opportunity to pursue a professional career in their chosen sport, has operated since 1997 under the names Women’s Pro Fastpitch (WPF) and Women’s Pro Softball League (WPSL). Visit the league website at www.profastpitch.com.
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PRESS CONTACT:
Scott Kimmelman, Arizona Heat (520) 296-9595.
Online at: www.arizonaprofastpitch.com.