BOONVILLE, Missouri -- The softball field at Boonville Correctional Center has two fences. The first is a standard outfield fence, 275 feet from home plate, stretching from foul line to foul line. The second, about 50 feet farther, is made of taut barbed-wire strands ringed by circles of razor wire, separating the state penitentiary from the world. It's a stark reminder that the field is, quite literally, a diamond in the rough.
That didn't keep Lucas Erceg from admiring it. Erceg, who over the past two seasons has established himself as one of the most reliable relief pitchers in baseball for the Kansas City Royals, had arrived at Boonville, a minimum security facility that houses more than 800 inmates, about an hour earlier.