Swarthmore baseball players returned to campus this August to find their dugouts entirely gone, with construction fences taking their place. While potentially shocking to some, the sight was neither unwelcome nor a surprise to the team. The baseball program has been aiming to upgrade their dugouts and bullpens for several years now, as the previous infrastructure was severely undersized and outdated.
As fundraising began for the project in early 2022, Swarthmore baseball alumni hoped to make the dugout more meaningful than a simple upgrade, and tied the project to the Matt Bertuch Mental Health Initiative. In 2021, Bertuch ’14, a Swarthmore baseball alum himself, tragically took his own life.
The dugout project serves to honor Bertuch’s memory, accomplishments, and sportsmanship as a lasting reminder of the importance of mental health and the powerful bonds amongst teammates. Spearheaded by junior pitcher Gavin Rigby ’28, the new dugouts will be named after Bertuch and will feature quotes chosen by the players to reinforce the suicide prevention message. Junior two-way Ian Born ’28 said he was quite excited that the project was finally entering the construction phase, adding that this has been in the works since before he ever got to campus.
Born was one of the few players surprised by the lack of dugouts when he returned for the Fall semester, not out of ignorance about the project, but simply because he “didn’t expect to actually have construction on campus.”
Taking a pessimistic view, Born assumed the project would face additional delays and challenges, saying, “anything that gets built, whether it be a public bridge or whatever, gets built late.”
One comforting note for him, however, is that the college cannot leave the area empty forever, seeing that the team cannot play without dugouts. Once they are inevitably put in, he thinks the field is going to be looking “very, very cool. Easily making [the] field one of the best in Division III.”
As baseball begins its offseason practices, the dugouts remain unfinished, with the installation date said to be soon, but no exact date has yet been finalized. This has caused the team to adapt around a construction site for a field. No dugouts means nowhere to put bags, gear, water, or other necessities. Suddenly, the right field bleachers have become the de facto dugouts; quite the new experience for the returning players who are used to the third-base side as the main area they operate.
Jackson Clemens ’28, another junior two-way player, said it has not been bad at all, adding, “We don’t really sit down during practice anyways, so it hasn’t been much of an adjustment.”
The most interesting part of the whole experience for him has been the two tents they have been setting up over the bleachers. According to Clemens, one leg on one of the tents is broken, “causing our dugout to be crooked every day.”
Unfortunately, not everything has been perfect.
Despite knowing of the project for a while, Clemens was taken aback by the scale of the construction. “I thought it was just supposed to be the dugouts, but they’ve fenced off the entire backstop, down each line, and even one of the bullpens.”
Although they are managing in the meantime, the team is looking forward to this project being completed and out of the way before the larger Fieldhouse renovations get underway.
