Baseball & Softball Field Backstop Stadium Netting
Thursday, March 24th, 2016
Baseball & Softball Field Backstop Stadium Netting
Barrier nets and protective netting panels are generally considered pretty imperative components of a baseball or softball field construction. For instance, barrier netting is used to block and protect spectators from foul balls, and is installed around the perimeter of the outfield fence to contain home run balls within the playing area (avoiding hitting vehicles or pedestrians outside of the complex). Other very necessary and popular netting installations at baseball fields is the containment and barrier netting used on backstops. Using Gourock.com you can source the right baseball and softball backstop and barrier netting for your field and/or backstop construction. Gourock supplies custom nylon nets that are prepared and shipped to you according to most any particular dimensions that you require. There are convenient online netting calculators on the site that are used to efficiently and quickly price and order custom nets, with a few different construction features to consider.
Baseball and softball barrier netting is generally recommended to be the 1-3/4″ knotted nylon netting, with a 5/16″ polyester rope bordering sewn-in around the perimeter edges. There are a couple of recommended twine thicknesses to consider, which are the #21 (2.0mm) and the #36 (2.5mm). The reasons for these selections and features are:
1-3/4″ mesh size is the best match for baseball/softball impacts, while still remaining as large as possible to minimize the visual nature of the material when hanging.
The rope bordering significantly reinforces and strengthens the edges of the netting panel, allowing for dependable connections to the installation cables/wires/tubing/etc. for the long-haul.
The two different twine thicknesses allow for a choice between more general-use barrier installations and more high-abrasion installations. For instance, the #21 is great for foul-line nets – whereas the #36 is great for the backstop nets.
All materials are black, bonded against moisture, and UV stabilized for full-time outdoor installations for many years.
Often, baseball field barrier nets and backstop nets require some additional custom features to be integrated into their design as well. For instance, there are many instances noted on our Gourock site and this company blog of netting panels that require shapes or tapered edges. Also very typical for custom nets that are being installed at sports facilities is a construction add-on known as a “rope riblines”. These are additional 5/16″ polyester ropes that run through the inner area of the netting, in addition to running along the entire perimeter of the mesh. Riblines are reinforcement features – meaning, they are added to the netting to line-up with the structural elements that the material is being connected to (wires, cables, tubing, poles, railings, etc.). At Gourock.com we often see nets with riblines being sourced by commercial organizations, schools/municipalities, universities, and other larger-scale netting installations that put a premium value on maximizing the ease-of-use and overall longterm durability of the overall netting installation.
Here is a great example from a couple of weeks ago that demonstrates exactly this sort of netting supply. This is a large backstop net produced for a school district in Texas for an outdoor installation. They opted for the thicker netting material, #36 X 1-3/4″ twisted-knotted DuPont type 66-728 nylon, as well as a series of both vertical and horizontal rope riblines running through the netting to make their attachments and connections to the existing backstop structure (as well as perimeter ropes around the edges). And in addition to that, two of the netting panels also incorporate tapered edges to line-up with the guy-wire cables that are also already existing at the location as well.
If you have something along these lines that you’d like to get a quote on, feel free to forward your request through our contact page and we can assist!
