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Monday’s Hot Clicks: Another Baseball Field Destroyed by an Attempt to Dry It With Fire

And there’s video this time. 

Dan Gartland

@AmityNorton/Twitter

Please stop doing this

I don’t like to beg people to read my stuff but the people of Ridgefield, Conn., could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they had just read Thursday’s Hot Clicks.

I wrote Thursday about a high school baseball coach in Utah who had been placed on leave after soaking the infield with gasoline. The field had to be shut down by the local health department because of the fuel contamination. Also included in my post was a brief history of idiots causing disasters by trying the same gasoline scheme, including a 1929 incident in which Detroit’s Negro League stadium was burned to the ground. But the parents of Ridgefield High School’s baseball team clearly missed the memo, because they also destroyed their field with gasoline.

Ridgefield was supposed to host Amity on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. but rain on Friday had left the field wet in spots, so someone had the bright idea to pour 25 gallons of gas on the dirt and set it on fire. The result was a pretty sizeable blaze that produced plumes of black smoke.

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“I’m not aware of who exactly it was who got the gas but what we do know is that someone did use some gas around third base and that seemed to work,” town First Selectman Rudy Marconi told the Ridgefield Press. “Others then went to get more gas and began spreading it from second over to the third … they lit up that little area and it dried it up. Everyone thought it was working. They thought they could take care of the whole field with gas. … One person said they had done it in the past.”

Marconi added that it’s easy to Google and see that the dump-and-burn strategy often backfires.

“It’s been done before, and every situation that’s out there ends with negative consequences,” he told the paper.

“Maybe it worked 50-60 years when there were no environmental regulations but nowadays it’s a definite no-no.” 

Cleanup crews spent Saturday night and all day Sunday digging up six to eight inches of contaminated dirt that will be hauled away this week. Marconi said the repairs are expected to cost the town at least $50,000. He’s trying to get the town’s insurance to cover the cost and even the insurance company can’t believe what happened. 

“One of the insurance representatives I spoke with this weekend said that in all of the years he’s been in the business this was in the top five ‘wait, what happened?’ phone calls he’s ever received,” Marconi told the Press. “And they’ve received a lot of claims over the years.”

Life comes at you fast

The wild finish to Auburn-Virigina put Tigers fans on a rollercoaster of emotion. 

The scene was even more unbelievable on the Auburn campus at Toomer’s Corner, where fans rushed out to roll the trees before realizing that Kyle Guy had been fouled on his three-point attempt. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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