FROM CBD NEWS SOURCE
BEAUMONT – The Lamar University baseball team will have a place to hold indoor practices with the completion of the H.D. “Tex” and Emma Strait Baseball Training Facility.
Situated next to Vincent-Beck Stadium on Jim Gilligan Way on the Lamar campus, the 9,600-square-foot complex is state-of-the-art and includes Astroturf flooring, batting nets and 60-square-foot batting cages used by pitchers and hitters for practice drills.
The entire facility is climate-controlled with bullpens dedicated to pitchers. Two additional batting cages are outside the building under the cover of a roof.
“This training facility will rival anything in the Southland Conference,” said Jim Gilligan, Lamar’s head baseball coach. “It will be a great recruiting tool for the baseball program.
“The fact the team can now work out, rain or shine, is very valuable to us during the season.”
The training facility was made possible through a generous gift from Henry and Fran Strait and is named for his parents. A formal dedication ceremony will take place at a yet-to-be-determined date and time early in the Lamar Cardinals’ 2011 baseball season.
