Philadelphia Amateur Baseball League Fields

The trees at Tarken

The league writes its ground rules down by field. At Tarken, the out-of-play line is the light poles on each side of the fence; a ball striking the trees that hang over the left field fence above the fence line is a home run, and below the tree line it is a ground rule double. At Edgley there is an out-of-play line running at forty-five degrees from the fence and then straight to the end of the field.

It also assigns the work. The home team puts the field back together afterwards -- raking dirt into the holes, tamping the mound and around the plate, dragging the surface -- and the last game of the day tarps the mound and the batter's box. Every team does field prep one Saturday a year. Failing any of it means a team fine, and unpaid fines mean forfeited games.

That is a league that knows it holds its grounds on trust. A High Cheese schedule attaches the ground to each game, so the tree rule at Tarken and the rota for tarps travel with the fixture rather than living in section thirty-five of a rulebook.