Village to Replace Dugouts at Little League Fields

The dugouts at the will be a little less “dug-out” for the 2013 season. The Village of Mineola is planning to replace the old-style below-grade benches with newer ones at the field level that are surrounded by fencing and has a corrugated roof on the top as part of rehabilitation efforts on fields one and three.

Superintendent of public works Tom Rini spoke with one of the village’s fencing contractors the week of July 16 to remove the old dugouts and install “at-grade, fenced-in style” dugouts comprised of benches with two gates that can be locked with a corrugated roof.

“This way it will be elevated, they’ll be able to see the game, it won’t be down into the ground so it will give them a little better fell on that,” Rini said during a meeting of the on July 11 at the . “It’ll be open, you’ll have air blowing through it but we’ll put a corrugated metal roof over the top, hang it over this way so if weather occurs during a game they’ll at least be out of the weather or sun. A lot of the newer baseball and sports facilities have gone to that type of dugout because you’ll have problems with water drainage into the dugout where a ball gets stuck in a pipe – which we’ve had happen there – they fill up with water, there are tripping hazards coming up the steps, things like that.”

Construction would occur in September and would not affect the soccer season. Rini said that the village would try to incorporate the farm field into the project as well.