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View from scaffolding one of best seats for game

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette From left, Jason Edler, Zack Harding and Josh Green, sit on scaffolding they built outside of Bowman Field to watch the MLB Little League Classic on Sunday.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a good story and or if the Sun-Gazette was going to need to hire a new sports reporter and rename Blaine Street behind Bowman Field to “Devin Bierly Memorial Way.”

The soaring scaffolding tower just outside BB&T Ballpark that ESPN cameras couldn’t get enough of last year once again was Bowman Field’s version of the Green Monster.

My light gray polo shirt and khaki pants turned a little darker as the humidity hit to me. Scaling the 15-foot structure felt like a trek up New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington at times with a bouncing, yet stable, aluminum extension ladder. My MLB Little League Classic lanyard with matching credential swayed back and forth with the ladder, clinging and clanging as echoes of ballpark music and crushing hits blared throughout the area.

As I made my first reach for a paint-dripped ladder rung, I began to have flashbacks of the last time I was on a scaffolding tower when a rusty iron bar knocked me nearly unconscious.

I pushed through the trepidation and reached the summit and once on top, the view was like an expensive seat at PNC Park. A perfect spot in left field to see all the action, including where all the home runs plop in the rain-soaked ground.

The masterful architects behind the choice seating are Josh Green and Jason Edler, both of whom have family living on that corner lot at the end of Blaine Street. The two received some help from Green’s daughter, Anora, and Edler’s cousin’s son, Zack Harding.

“Every once in a while, we get somebody who wants to come up and see the view,” Green said.

Green’s father is a big Mets fan and wanted an opportunity to see them play last year.

“He doesn’t really like heights but he came up for the Mets game. This game he’s not really invested in,” Green said.

The three decided to construct the tower with scaffolding from Green’s uncle, who runs a masonry business called White Masonry.

“I think it’s awesome. Josh hooked me up,” Edler said as he took peeks to home plate with his binoculars.

They had more than enough to construct multiple towers and create an entire outfield seating deck and could sell them for big money, but injury concerns and being libel squashed that business dream.

Building the tower only takes about 30 minutes and is OSHA certified with the safety rail, pins and five 2 by 10 by 15 foot laminated planks.

The good idea has caught on with neighbors as the next two houses down have their own make-shift seating, one with a towable boom and the other with an admirable, yet not as impressive, and surely not OSHA certified, scaffolding tower.

Murmurings around the ballpark before first pitch were that the tower was shut down by the city, but those proved to be false. Green and Edler have had no problems and plan to make this an every year tradition.

“We should get some signs and stuff. Do it up right,” Edler said.

Green and Edler aren’t the biggest baseball fans, but enjoy Little League and postseason baseball.

“Hard not to like it (baseball) in mid-August in Williamsport,” Edler said.

They’ve enjoyed the renovations to Bowman Field and like the opportunity to take in a professional baseball game from the cheap seats. But sometimes, cheap seats are the best seats.

Devin Bierly is a sports reporter at the Sun-Gazette. He can be reached by email at dbierly@sungazette.com.

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