YSU not getting money's worth

Youngstown State baseball and softball teams have great places to play their home games.
The Penguins call Eastwood Field (formerly Cafaro Field) and McCune Park home these days even though the two fields are located in Niles and Canfield.
While McCune Park, which is owned by the Canfield Baseball and Softball organization, bends over backward to make conditions outstanding for the Penguin softball team, Eastwood Field is anything but accommodating for the YSU baseball team.
YSU pays a pretty good piece of change to play its baseball games at Eastwood, and after taking in three games this past weekend, I don't think the Penguins are getting their money's worth.
I know back when the agreement was first reached when then-Cafaro Field opened, the Penguins, thanks to an offer by then YSU president Les Cochran, agreed to pay something like $25,000 a year to use the field.
Nobody is going to argue that the playing conditions at Eastwood Field are among the best that any college team could ask for.
There is more seating than the Penguins could ever need, and they are all good and comfortable seats.
No American flag
But for $25,000, you would think that the Mahoning Valley Scrappers organization could at least put up an American flag so that when "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played before each game that fans and players would at least have somewhere to face.
Now I know that in April in Northeastern Ohio the weather is not conducive for the stadium to open the restroom facilities, which are not heated.
But would it be asking too much for them to place at least two portable restrooms on the grounds for the fans? Presently, there is just one that must be used by both men and women and the lines can get rather lengthy at times.
Then you stop to figure that the Penguins are lucky to get in a dozen home games with the weather here. (They had to play their first two home games this year in Toronto, Ohio, because Eastwood Field wasn't playable).
That figures out to roughly $2,000 a game the Penguins pay to play at Eastwood. That's pretty expensive for a college team to be paying.
McCune delivers
Over at McCune Park, Gary Williams and his organization is doing everything that it can to make the Penguins' field one of the best in the Horizon League.
This season, Williams, who by the way is now a full-time assistant coach with the team, had added two new bleacher sections to each side of the field.
They are in the process of enlarging the dugouts for both the home team and visitors, and his hopes for the future include locker rooms for both teams as well as enlarging the press box.
Williams says that he hopes to have everything in place before the Penguins play host to the Horizon League Tournament in 2006.
This season, he also had signs erected on the outfield fence naming all the member teams of the Horizon League.
And yes, the field has heated restrooms for players and fans, thanks to the new administration building the organization constructed two years ago, and it is aptly named for the man behind the scenes, Gary Williams.
And yes, there is an American flag flying at the field for all of the home games.
And I'm also pretty sure that Youngstown State University is not paying anywhere near the $25,000 figure it pays for Eastwood Field, if it's paying anything at all.
I still enjoyed my weekend watching the Penguins at Eastwood, and would recommend to anyone who has a chance to get out and watch either team in action.
Hopefully, by the time you get to Eastwood the restrooms will be open and the flag flying. You don't have to worry when you go to McCune Park.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.