It would be cool if you could add a little 2" or 3" LCD screen out there on the scoreboard to represent the large video screens at a lot of parks. You could hook up a DVD under the layout and play scenes of replays, stats, commentary, etc. Would be a little challenging technically but very cool I think. You could also try this with a football stadium. Some day if I ever get to build my dream layout, I want to have both a nice modern baseball park and football stadium.
I built a little leage baseball diamond on an odd shaped bank spot on my N scale layout and I am quit happy with it. Here is how ai went about it. First, I had to selecively compress the field. I shortened everything, but in proportion to actual dimentions. Little league base lines are 60 feet, but mine are 45’. The outfield fence is scale 75 feet out. The outfiled fence, dugouts, and high backstop are all chail link fence. I made mine from cloth type window screen, but there are chail link products on the market as well. I made posts from small (I don’t remember the exact dinension) styrene rod and painted the whole fence ATSF silver. I made a template of the infield (inside baselines) and outfield (outside base lines) out of heavy paper. I used diluted gule and covered the whole field heavily with gree grass colored ground foam. After that dried I place the templates in place leaving only the baselines exposed and I applied more glue and soil colored ground foam to the baselines. When that was all dry i glued tin styreme bases in place and used a straight edge to paint white baselines on the soil with a tin brush. I but the fences in place and added yellow fowl poles on the outfield fence. I put players in the dugouts and on the field. No commercial baseball players are available that I am aware of, so I had to paint uniforms on my own players and even heated and remolded some to get a batter, catcher, and other positions. I then added little lines of uneven soil colored foam around both sides of the fences and aroud the grand stand area to simulate trampled grass from players and crowds. Finally I scratch build three sets of bleechers and put fans on them, placing them around the back stop. This was certainly a fun and challenging project, and I am very pleased with the way mine turned out. Good luck.
Ron
Has anyone seen or built a baseball field. If so it would be great if you had pictures or tips on how to do it. I am always looking for inspiration!
Deep in the recesses of my memory is the thought that the NMRA has, or had, a data sheet for baseball diamonds. Are you an NMRA member?
In my railfanning I have noticed that a fair number of major league, semi pro, and amateur baseball fields are near railroad tracks.
Dave Nelson
Welcome to the forum!
That’s a pretty ambitious project! I’ve never done it (and I model in N-scale) so I would first have to be concerned about how much room this would take up on an HO layout. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it done in N-scale (a small one on an N-trak module) where the space requirement is a bit less of a concern.
I don’t know if this is an overly simplistic approach, but wouldn’t you just take the dimensions of a typical baseball field and divide by 87? So if you have, say 400 feet to dead center field, which would be about 4 1/3 feet in HO. That’s a lot of real estate on a layout.
Good luck! Please post some pictures if you do make one.
I also wanted to build a little leage baseball field… but after seeing the requirements (kids playing baseball, and alot of space) i switched to a drive-in diner
I am planning a room sized basement layout, and I plan to model a 1940’s era minor league baseball stadium. One spot that worked well for me is to place stadium inside a 180 degree turn-back curve at the end of a penisula. I am using a 30" minimum radius, so that leaves a little under five feet inside the inner track.
The penisula will be in front of the door to the train room, so the stadium will be a sort of focal point as visitors enter the room.
Also, this takes the viewer’s eyes away from the somewhat un-prototypical turnback curve, and the curved outfield wall will fit nicely along the tracks.
I have been to several St. Paul Saints (Northern League) minor league games, and their Midway stadium is located between a mainline on one side, and a yard on the other. Talk about combining two great things to watch!
If you go to Google or any search engine and type " baseball field dimensions" in the search box you will get links to all kinds of info. I wanted to build one on my layout but it required more space than I had available, even to build a Pinto ballfield which is smaller then Little league. I think in HO you will need about 3 square feet of room or so for the field , stands, fence, parking lot etc. One day I may just build one as an add on diarama to my layout.
Bee-Line
This topic came up last year. I suggested, more than half seriously, that the field be built across the aisle, putting the infield and stands on one side with the baseline or second base up to the edge of the benchwork and putting the last of the outfield across the aisle. Ther could be a disappointed player looking at a ball through the fence, or an active one going for a catch.
The baseball field demensions are on the D2h NMRA data sheet along with other sports field sizes and even one for a drive-in movie.
Doug
I have one of those old electric football sets & have 1/2way considered putting a stadium around it & having a game going on as my trains run by. Remember these, 2-3 men are always turning around in a continuous circle!
RayE
I’ve been toying with this idea too. I got some large sheets of paper and drew a field to scale in HO, and this may sound strange but it looked way too big. I did another drawing where I compressed everything about 60% and it looked much better.
Because people are used to seeing ball games from the stands where the perspective makes it look smaller, I think you can get away with that level of compression. It will still take up a good chunk of space, but not as much.
I’m in the process of designing the site plan for a minor league baseball stadium here. It’s a 4,000 seat stadium, with 1,100 parking spaces, which combined, occupy a space of 905,000 square feet. Scaled down to HO scale, that translates to about 120 square feet.
I guess my advice would be to use not-so-selective compression and perhaps model the stadium near the edge of the layout to give the impression that the parking lies beyond the edge of the layout.
Maybe a little league field would be more suitable, as the dimensions are shorter, seating capacity is much less, and of course, parking isn’t nearly as extensive.
All the above sounds absolutly facinationg but tell me, just how small is the baseball or can you even see it.
A true scale field, without seating or parking, could easily be 300 feet down the lines (almost three and a half feet in HO). It might me tempting to keep the infield diamond at 90 feet square (about one HO foot) and just compress the expansive outfield, but from laying it out in full size paper, I have found that your eye seems to use the diamond as referrence. I scaled the entire field down to about 75% and it looks great (on paper, that is).
My next step is to make a 3D mock up of stadiums designs to get an idea for realistic stands and outfield wall height.
Unfortunately, my large layout is a few years away, so I have had to change my modeling scope down to an industrial switching layout that will someday be a part of my basement empire. I do, however, plan to build the baseball stadium as a diarama to be sropped into my layout someday.
I found this site that might be of interest. I thought the models were great. Extremely expensive, but cool.
There is a picture of a baseball park in the 2004 Walthers reference book. Its on page 621.
The model won third place in the Magic of Model Railroading Photo contest. It is very nicely done. It appears to have been scale down, but looks nice. Dave
I’ve seen one (representing a Little League or soft ball field) on an NTRAK module several years ago. It was undersize but still looked good. It worked because we really don’t realize how much space a to scale model woud take.
The right field stands (wall) in a flat and a painted backdrop with the rest. Wrigley field (as near to heaven as can be imagined) with the Milwaukee road tracks along the Clark street side, Streetcars on Addison and Clark street. “L”. Electric signs at box offices and hoards of fellows in straw hats and baseball caps clamoring to get in.
Doug, in Utah
(formerly walking distance from Wrigley Field)
I’ve seen youth sport centers and decided to put one up on my N Scale layout. It has two "little league diamonds and three soccer fields. I "compressed the fields to a size that looks “about right”. That is the bases are 30 scale feet apart, and the outfield fence is 90 scale feet down each line. I used a compass to mark the fence line so the fence is a circular segment. This compromise looks proportional (major and minor league has 90 feet between bases and 300 foot fences (avg), so the proportion is roughly 3 to 1), and takes up less space. The soccer fields are 100 scale feet long and 40 scale feet wide. This is compressed, too, but looks proprtional. I used some old building walls in my spare parts bin to build a “clubhouse” for rest rooms, equipment rental, etc… All I need to do now is build little N Scale bleachers. This compression should also work for HO Scale.