By Tim Robertson

I went to a youth baseball game in Hicksville some two years ago, and if I hadn’t ever seen University Field, the Hicksville field wouldn’t have struck me as impressive. Unfortunately, I’ve seen where the Pride baseball team plays.

In Hicksville, they have bathrooms, concessions and seating for more than a couple dozen, unlike the Hofstra field. (The concession and bathroom inconvenience’s are the same with Hofstra’s softball field, as well).

Let’s say you down a few bottles of water during a ball game at any normal park. To use the men’s room, you, at worst, would have to walk a 50 or so yards to the nearest restroom and miss a few swings, maybe a couple outs. At Hofstra, you’d be lucky not to miss a full inning.

Hungry?

I sure hope not.

The concession stands, if they’re even open, are also inside the Mack, an inning’s stroll from your seat.

Both of these have to change at both fields. It makes for a happier (drier), livelier (stuffed) and packed crowd at the ball games.

But getting back to University Field specifically, it would be easy to have a packed crowd. It would take 100 or so people on the removable cold metal bleachers to “pack” the field.

In last week’s victory over Iona, a mass of 76 stormed University Field to watch the Pride notch their sixth win. Don’t think that’s because of spring break, because the week before, against Rider, a contingent of 75 battled the traffic to watch Hofstra.

Now, this might be because most people know the Pride baseball team usually struggles and doesn’t produce a winning record all that often (They’re 6-15 through Monday, and haven’t had a winning record the past eight seasons – meaning none under coach Chris Dotolo), but Long Island loves baseball. There shouldn’t be a reason – even a long losing streak – why fans don’t come to the games.

If Hofstra put in the same kind of money into University Field that they put into the new graduate building, plans for a medical school, the NAB, the amusement park signs, and so on, more people would come out to the ball games.

The University put money into the field itself some six years ago with a new turf and new dugouts, but the field remains just that, a field, not a stadium.

It doesn’t take a college sports genius to figure out that facilities factor into the decisions of recruits. I’m sure venues like the soccer stadium, Shuart and the Mack attract some of the best recruits around, and look what the football, lacrosse, soccer, basketball and wrestling teams have accomplished in recent history.

Maybe if Hofstra invested some dough into America’s pastime, more stellar recruits like Matt Prokopowicz would through on the Pride blue and gold.

In addition to how a ball park looks and feels, a recruit also looks for media attention, of which the Hofstra baseball team has very little outside this weekly campus newspaper. Perhaps if the “press box” didn’t look like a few guys built it with a couple two-by-fours from Home Depot that morning, a Long Island Ultimate Athlete writer, or Newsday writer or a radio station would at least come watch and give the team a blurb somewhere.

It’s a Catch-22 situation though, and I understand that.

Hofstra won’t update its facilities with restroom access, concessions, more seating and a better press box until the team produces a few winning records, and the team might not be able to get over the .500 mark until it can grab recruits by showcasing some better and updated facilities.

Either that, or they should just move their games to Hicksville.