Great move, PIAA

The sites and times for the semifinal round of the PIAA Baseball Championships were released Friday afternoon and three games will be contested at two minor league parks Monday.

Altoona's Blair County Ballpark, the site of the state finals, has a doubleheader Monday as Hershey battles Elizabeth-Forward in a 4 p.m. Class AAA game and District 6 Class AA rivals Central and Mt. Union square off at 7.

FirstEnergy Stadium in Reading plays host to a Class AAA semifinal as Berks County rivals Twin Valley and Conrad Weiser meet for an unprecedented fifth time.

This is an outstanding decision that will help high school baseball in Pennsylvania. Due to scheduling conflicts with the minor league teams that call the facilities home and the distance between teams playing, we understand it's not always feasible to have a minor league park host a game before the finals.

But when the opportunity is there, as it was for this year's semifinals, it should be taken advantage of. Again, kudos to the PIAA for making an outstanding decision.

To throw this out there, we have to wonder if these parks are opening their doors because the PIAA is accepting bids from sites that are interested in hosting the PIAA finals from 2011-2014. We'll have a story about this that will run June 19. The Altoona Curve has changed ownership since we last checked with them about being the host site in 2007. That group loved having the finals at Blair County Ballpark.

While we haven't talked to the Curve brass yet (an interview date and time is being work out) the fact that they are hosting games Monday makes us believe they would like to keep the state finals in Altoona.

Metro Bank Park in Harrisburg, which has hosted the finals in the past and had 3-A title game in May*, went through a renovation over the winter and should be considered a contender for the games. As far as if the Senators want them or not, we're unsure. The Senators have yet to respond to an e-mail from The Sentinel asking whether they are submitting a request for proposal to the PIAA.

Stay tuned.

*-Metro Bank Park was supposed to host the 3-AAAA final but a strong thunderstorm rendered the field unplayable and the game was moved to Memorial Field in Hershey.