With borrowing rates at historic lows, Europe’s baseball clubs are taking advantage of the opportunity to improve their facilities and infrastructure, with a number of projects recently completed or just started.
The most recent project to take shape is on the Balearic island of Menorca, where work on the island chain’s first ball field began on Thursday. The ball field in Mahón, Menorca’s capital, will be home to the Menorca Pirates Baseball Club.
In Germany, the Guggenberger Legionäre Regensburg will be adding to their gold-standard facilities, with a project that will give the perennial Bundesliga contenders an additional 2,000 square meters of office space, locker rooms, and training facilities.
Elsewhere in Germany, the Stuttgart Reds began work on a project in March. Expected to last two years, the undertaking will transform the Stutgart’s current facilities into some of Europe’s finest, according to the club.
In Austria, the Attnang-Puchheim Athletics renovated their facilities and added LED lighting in the summer, finally allowing for the Upper Austria club to play night games, with the lights turned on for the first time in Austrian Bundeslig action on July 24, when the Athletics hosted — and swept — the Feldkirch Cardinals. The renovations, which were ten years in planning, move the club one step closer to its long-term goal of establishing a youth academy.
To the north, in Poland, Wroclaw has upgraded its baseball facilities as well, with new lighting and protective netting improving the baseball infrastructure in the city located in the southwest of the country.