I will answer with what I can and not try to throw anyone under the bus since I didn't " have a horse in this race".
The standard contract is field prep prior to the first game time each morning. Anything else and it is extra. Batters boxes? Extra. Reline every few game slots? Extra. Temp fencing set up at youth distances? Extra. The only thing that isn't extra is routine maintainence like filling the holes in front of the pitching plate, batters boxes, etc.
I did not book a summer fast-pitch event with the CRPD due to the availability of the Pickerington complexes (lesson learned on those also in regards to North) and their non-availabilty the same weekend due to a large baseball tournament. No problem. I have usually always gotten a good effort from them no matter what and they are like everyone else: treat them nice and they do some things unexpectedly like recondition fields for the championship games with out an additional fee. (Thanks Mike W!!).
I have experience there for a couple of large events with the NSA Worlds a couple of times in the past at the facility and it is two differerent complexes. The front 17 fields have a turface/brick dust composition, the back 14 fields (or back forty as we called them during the World Series) have clay right underneath the topping. Anyone who has dealt with clay fields knows that water just sits right under the surface and runs off/absorbs very slowly and needs air/sun time more than anything else to get the sloppiness out of them. CRPD is very touchy about throwing any kind of diamond dry as the dry material is not the same as there topping. This is why you see large piles of what looks like brick dust behinds several of the fields. They go over there and shovel some into the back of a gator and spread it on the trouble spots.
When we had weather issues during the Worlds (and a week long tourney will have some weather related stoppages), we got with the head groundskeeper and got the word and then updated the rain line immediately. NSA split the park up into (5) 6-field "hubs" and assigned a TD and UIC to those hubs. When we had a stoppage, we got with our UIC and took our golf carts out to our hubs to inspect and then got on the walkie-talkies and got back to tournament headquarters. It is easy to justify the cost when you have in the neighborhood of 400+ teams playing in the event.
The parking fee is $3. Anything over that is negotiated with the TD. I always felt that the field expense was very reasonable and did not justify asking for more. Concessions is a private vendor who bids each year for the right to run the stands and set up additional carts like Donatos and Schmidts near the large shelter behind field five and a couple of private vendors thru out the park. There was a guy with his own cart who parked near the back of the park (fields 26-31) and had the best Pork Chop samiches!!!
Folks don't give up on Berliner just yet. The TD may not know all of these details just from only dealing with them for a few years now. I have the good fortune of over 15 years plus dealing with CRPD for field reservations. I have gotten in there ear to come up with a fee that was inclusive and featured temp fencing set up at youth distances, additional field touch up, etc and there office staff has assured me they will sit down and figure it out. The biggest thing in dealing with them is you gotta ask, they won't volunteer the info.
Myself personally, I could not pull off this type of event alone. I just do not have the staff and have to rely too heavily on field workers or as OQM puts it "union" workers.
Hope all is well for everyone and it finally quits raining on the weekends just once this spring/summer.
Mike Craig
I'd find out the whole story first... because something just doesn't set well with me right now... I don't know what it is... but there are more than meets the eye here.
Nobody can say the city is at fault here yet. No one.
I can remember Mike Craig stating that the field rentals come with one drag on a Sunday morning..... I would guess as a TD you have to "pay" for the rest of the employees.
