City installing new nets at park

Appalachian Power Park will get new safety nets in time for thestart of the next baseball season.

City officials said they plan to install the nets before the WestVirginia Power takes the field for its 2008 home opener on April 7.

Rod Blackstone, assistant to Mayor Danny Jones, said the new netswould expand the safety area near the top of the dugout and connectit with the current netting at the ballpark.

The current safety nets stretch from home dugout to the visitors'dugout.

Blackstone, who is known around the stadium as the "Toastman"because of his habit of heckling and throwing toast at opposingteams, said the netting would protect those waiting in concessionlines near the first base and third base lines.

"It's to better protect the people standing in lines, facing awayfrom the field," Blackstone said. "It will expand the reach of thedugout on both sides."

In the club's first season in 2005, two people were hurt afterbeing struck by foul balls.

One spectator, local attorney Nancy McDaniel, faced multiple eyesurgeries after a foul ball struck her in the temple.

Blackstone said ballpark officials had been talking aboutexpanding the nets since the first season, but they only decidedrecently to go through with the plan.