New baseball field at Palomar College – The San Diego Union-Tribune

SAN MARCOS — Engineers blasted away a hillside at the north end of the Palomar College campus and found a diamond.

Actually, they carted away the rubble and built a diamond, a sparkling new baseball facility that opened with much fanfare last month.

The new facility, complete with lighted batting cages, concession stands, restrooms, press box and a state-of-the-art scoreboard, is just the start of a new athletic and kinesiology complex on campus.

The project will eventually include a softball field, football stadium, tennis courts, sand volleyball courts and a swimming complex for competition and classes.

There will also be a health and kinesiology building that will house a new gym, locker rooms, weight rooms, a fitness center with a fitness testing lab, lecture rooms, offices and a training room.

All this will fit into what is now a parking lot. So before more construction begins, a four-story parking structure must be built.

“These new facilities are about athletics and instruction,” said Adrian Gonzales, Palomar’s interim superintendent and president. “The baseball diamond is part of a larger athletic complex. And if this is the standard, the rest will be amazing.

“The baseball diamond will also serve kinesiology students. When we’re all done, we will be able to better serve our students and athletes. And it will be more comfortable, more inviting so the community can enjoy watching our athletic events.”

In 2006, voters approved Prop M, which allotted $694 million to improve and build new facilities at Palomar. Included in that are a natural and health sciences building, a performing arts center and new facilities at the school’s Escondido Center.

For more than 60 years, Palomar’s baseball teams played on Myers Field, a facility located on West Mission Road with cars, trucks and fire engines and the clanging of the Sprinter across the street screaming past.

It was a dusty, dirty place that lacked adequate seating, restrooms and concessions. The public address system was beyond scratchy.

The outfield was terraced at the fences, forcing fielders to climb a hill to reach long drives.

The scoreboard was a donation from San Diego State in the ’80s and was showing its age.

Foul balls regularly landed on busy West Mission, cracking windshields. Myers Field also sat back-to-back with the softball field, making it difficult to play softball and baseball at the same time.

Despite its drawbacks, Palomar has had eight baseball players reach the major leagues with several others coaching or scouting at the major league and college levels.

Baseball coach Buck Taylor said 95 percent of Palomar’s players go on to four-year colleges.

“It’s exciting to see the finished product,” said Bob Vetter, former Palomar baseball coach as well as former chairman of the Kinesiology Department and a key member of the building committee.

“It’s exciting to be part of the design team. Years of hard work and pride have gone into this.

“As a coach, you preach teamwork. This project is a perfect example of teamwork on our campus.”

Palomar has played men’s and women’s basketball and men’s and women’s volleyball and wrestled in The Dome since the gymnasium was built in 1958. A unique facility, The Dome is showing its age.

While the old baseball and softball acreage will house parking and buildings, The Dome will stay as a historical landmark. But it will no longer serve athletics.

Palomar’s football team hasn’t played on campus for decades. Home games last season were at Escondido High. The new football stadium will seat somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000.

The only problem is that the building project will take time. Scott Cathcart, Palomar’s athletic director, urged patience.

“No one wants to get pinned down to a time frame,” Cathcart said. “It’s all going to happen, but it could be 2018, maybe 2020 before it starts to come together.

“But when it’s all done, we’ll have a diamond built out of the rough.”