Sunday, May 13, 2007

Vincent-Beck Stadium: A Story of Overcoming

A mere two years ago, the NSU Demons visited Vincent-Beck Stadium, the home of the Lamar baseball Cardinals in Beaumont. It was a nice enough stadium. The pressbox was a little outdated but still very adequate, while the outfield fence could have stood to have a little work done. The scoreboard was standard and sitting in left center field.

Then hurricane Rita blew through, destroying just about everything at Vincent-Beck. The press box was literally blown on top of the stands, the outfield wall was hammered and the bleachers were in disrepair. So Lamar set about to rebuild it, and do it in grand style.

Mission accomplished.

The new press box, which hosted the SLC baseball tournament last year, is a beauty. Two large rooms in the main press area for gameday operations plus plenty of overflow room for media, plus two very spacious and comfortable rooms for home and visiting radio. New bleachers down the lines, nice brick facade on the backstop and then the large entertainment pavilion down the left field line.

But what really seals the deal is the new scoreboard. Last year, the scoreboard was nice. A bright red, big board with all the pertinent info on it, now in right center. However, this year, the Cardinals added a video screen. That's right, a baseball team in the SLC with a video board on their scoreboard. Pretty amazing stuff. They have good video content...updated stats on both teams, pictures of the Cardinal players as they bat and various games for the audience to participate in.

Credit must be paid to the Cardinal administration for taking a horrible situation and making something great out of it. Vincent-Beck Stadium will continue to be a shining example for a great recovery from a terrible tragedy.

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