Parents build multipurpose batting-cage area for Queen Anne's County Lions baseball team

Parents of players for the Queen Anne's County Lions baseball team said they built a multipurpose batting-cage area at the high school this year to provide more training options and move pitching activity off the playing field.

"So this is a huge advantage to these baseball players," said Commenter (name not specified). "Yeah. We've talked about this project probably for about 2 years now, and, it finally came to fruition this year because me and another parent on the team, Joe Kramer, put this together, and he designed some of it. And I put my ideas together and came came to be. Originally, it was just 1 big long batting cage."

A parent involved in the project (Parent, name not specified) described the finished layout: "It that we made up of 2 batting cages. Our bullpen area used to be on the outside of the fence, so I wanted to pretty much make it a multipurpose type area. So we have our plyo station here for the pitchers where they get their arms loose with plyo balls and throw them against the walls and use their band works and those types of things. We have the pitch pockets where the pitchers work on their different location drills. We have a tee station here and we have the actual batting cage on the backside And we moved our bullpens to the inside of the batting cage so that we no longer have them on the field, and we have 2 different mounds that we can use."

Speakers emphasized that the site remains open to spectators. "And people ride by, they see you guys playing baseball. Anybody's welcome to stop and cheer these guys on," Commenter said. The parent added that the cheering section and parking are arranged outside the fence to allow visitors to watch practice and games: "Yeah. I mean, our whole cheering section basically is right here, outside the fence. So anybody can park. We put all our parking's right along here, and they can come right here and, and participate."

The organizers described the project as the result of about two years of informal planning by parents and volunteers; no funding sources, formal approvals, or school names beyond "the high school" were specified in the remarks. The speakers identified Joe Kramer as the co-organizer and designer, but Kramer did not speak on the record in the provided transcript excerpts.

Local youth players will use the space for pitching and batting drills, plyometric warm-ups and tee work. The organizers did not provide a timetable for future improvements or any maintenance arrangements.