Evansville's Bosse Field approved to receive synthetic baseball turf
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EVANSVILLE — One of the oldest baseball stadiums in the country will undergo a major change.
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Bosse Field was approved to receive synthetic playing field turf by the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. during its board meeting on Monday, July 6. Along with an update to the drainage system which flows into Garvin Lake, the cost of the project was set at $2,136,856 with RiverTown Construction being awarded the bid.
EVSC director of communication Jason Woebkenberg said work is scheduled to start following the Evansville Otters' season. That earliest possible date is October.
"This is going to create more opportunities for our high school athletes to play on that field," Woebkenberg said. "We're going to lose fewer games to rainouts when we have rainy springs. We're very fortunate in this community to have such a historic venue like Bosse Field. When you have a historic venue, you have to invest in it."
It will be one of the larger updates to the facility since it opened in 1915. A new scoreboard and LED lighting system, along with other upgrades, were implemented in 2020, but the bones of the facility have gone largely untouched since the 1950s. Boston's Fenway Park (1912) and Chicago's Wrigley Field (1914) are the only stadiums with longer continued regular use for professional baseball in the United States.
Bosse Field has been home to multiple baseball teams over the years, including the Triple-A Evansville Triplets (1970-1984). It also hosted most of the City's high school baseball and football teams at various points. The only remaining tenants are Reitz baseball, Mater Dei baseball and the Otters (Frontier League).
The stadium will be the fifth in Southwestern Indiana to regularly host high school baseball games on turf next season. The others are Jasper's Alvin C. Ruxer Field, Princeton's Gil Hodges Field, Castle (turf infield) and Barr-Reeve. University of Evansville's Braun Stadium also hosted several Memorial home games in recent years. Bosse Field had the sectional and regional in the IHSAA baseball state tournament this past spring too.
"It's going to protect that historical venue of Bosse Field," Reitz coach Todd DeWeese said. "I think it will be a selling card for more people to come in and play. Some people feel like the natural grass is part of the tradition and character. That's a valid perspective. But the turf allows more teams to play games that we typically get rained out on. We fight the spring weather way more than the Otters fight the summer weather."
The main positive for such a move is field maintenance paired with spring weather. The idea also updates the historical facility into a modern era. In theory, other local teams beyond Reitz and Mater Dei could use Bosse Field in the spring if needed. EVSC board members also mentioned non-athletic events potentially being hosted on the turf.
"Turf makes life easier," Mater Dei coach Adam Wildeman said. "When you have bad weather, especially in the spring, high school baseball can be frustrating as a coach. That being turf (gives) you a little bit of stability there. It's an EVSC field. I'm sure other schools are going to use it and use it more often than they have been."
It's not a move that came without questions or detractors. Among the sticking points in making the switch concerned the other EVSC schools since North, Central, Harrison and Bosse have their own baseball fields to maintain independently. Woebkenberg said prioritzing turf at Bosse Field boiled down to "many opportunities for the entire school district and the community to utilize that space."
The project will be funded through general obligation bond funds.
"We are going to do what we need to do to maintain and enchance this community treasure," Woebkenberg said. "Turf is going to allow us to do that. And it's going to provide not only a system that drains well and allows us to maximize dates, it's going to an extremely safe playing surface as well."
This becomes another ongoing facility project within the school system. Reitz Bowl and Enlow Field are completing year-long projects this summer. Harrison's Romain Stadium is currently in the process of receiving updated synthetic football turf (cost of $684,660 per the Jan. 12 meeting) and Central Stadium is resurfacing its track (cost of $612,800 per the Jan. 12 meeting).
Kyle Sokeland is a sports reporter for the Courier & Press. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @kylesokeland or email at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville's Bosse Field approved to receive synthetic baseball turf