The Cerritos College baseball team postponed two back-to-back games at the top of the 10th inning earlier in the season due to darkness, however, plans have not been brought up to fix the lack of lights on the field.
Both games were postponed in a tie with the Falcons and the College of the Canyons Cougars ending at 5-5 on Jan. 30, and 4-4 with the Glendale Community College Vaqueros on Feb. 1.
“We were two in one week. Should’ve won them both,” said Ken Gaylord, coach for the Cerritos College baseball team.
Gaylord does not know where lights would be put on the field, but offered another solution: starting games at 1 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. early in the season.
“I think the umpire has got to do a better job checking their cellphones for what time, you know, the sun sets,” Gaylord added.
Gaylord went on to say, “When you put in lights, sometimes you lose control of your field, because when you play night games, it does a lot more damage than the day games.”
David Moore, director of physical and construction services, was not aware the baseball team had to suspend two games in the same week because of lighting issues.
He stated there have not been any requests made to put in new lights on the baseball field, though he found it interesting.
“In this political climate here, I don’t think, I don’t see [it happening], you know unless the students got really involved,” Gaylord said, “That’s tough to do.”
He said that when there is loss of control, the field ends up getting beat up.
He brought up issues that might arise with this kind of project, including the high costs of good lights and hard work that would be put in.
“I think if they had extra money, like the new fieldhouse, they probably would put it in there,” the coach continued, “From what I’ve been hearing, the new fieldhouse is going to have less square footage than the old one. And usually that doesn’t happen.”
The game against the Cougars will continue where the teams left off on Feb. 14 and Feb. 21 against the Vaqueros, both at the top of the 10th inning.
