Last week, I wrote about the long-running and low-key feud between the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and local high school baseball coaches over Bazinsky Field.

In case you missed it, the coaches at Vicksburg High and St. Aloysius have long wanted to help with gameday preparation, working on Bazinsky after it rains, and to make improvements to the field itself but have met with resistance.

The constraints of space sometimes don’t allow us to write everything we’d like to, however, so consider this part two of that column. It occurred to me that there needed to be a part two last Saturday while covering the St. Al-Manchester Academy game, as music blared from the field’s speakers between every inning.

The speakers, you see, are brand new. In recent years, Bazinsky’s sound system had worn out like all things do. If you put a wire in just the right spot and smacked the speaker just right, you might hear John Fogarty singing about playing center field. If you didn’t do it right, you might hear a more depressing song about sitting on the bench, taking lumps, and hitting the sun while telling someone goodbye.

The new sound system is terrific, if a bit loud, and its controls are housed in a renovated press box.

The new box has Wi-Fi, better sight lines, better air conditioning and a new paint job. There’s even a new phone in there. It’s a major upgrade over the old box, which was functional but had seen better days since the field was built about 20 years ago.

The renovated press box oversees a field that is also in great shape. Parks and Recreation director Joseph Graves, maintenance supervisor Jeff Boyett and his crew, and everyone else who works on the field have it looking good. The grass is thick and lush, and the dirt a lovely shade of brown.

So, all of this is to say that there is nothing wrong with the field or the efforts to maintain it. Quite the contrary. There has been a lot of work put into Bazinsky Field this year to make it an outstanding venue. Those that have put in the time and effort should be very proud. Bazinsky Field is, and can be, a great place to watch a ballgame and a showcase for Vicksburg athletics.

Keep up the great work, guys, but let’s all try to work together to make sure we can show it off more often.

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Ernest Bowker is a sports writer for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com