In northern climates, competitive sports teams require indoor practice facilities to fulfill the need for proper training.  The demand for suitable facilities that are spacious enough for proper sports training in Chicago is very high.  This, coupled with a lack of instructors that understand how to effectively teach the fundamentals of competitive sports to varied age levels, means many teams, coaches, players, and parents aren't getting the appropriate instruction and repetitions to build strong players and teams.

The Infield opened the doors in 2012  as a house of rental space and instuction, but grew into team management based on customer requests. Now we have uncovered additional opportunities in related revenue streams as our player base, customer base and network have expanded.  As our base has grown, our opportunities have grown.  As a result, we have uncovered opportunities that we never considered in 2012 when we opened the doors.  

The Infield is a sports training and activities facility that provides high-quality instruction and coaching in an environment that is suitable for development and success.

The Infield opened in 2012 exclusively as a training and rental facility.  At the onset we offered team training to the general public for travel and rec league teams, clinics, classes, private lessons, group lessons, tunnel rentals and field space rentals in an 80 by 115 foot turfed-in space with 20 foot ceilings, 4 standard size retractable tunnels, 4 portable pitching mounds, 2 portable pitching machines and a team video analyst/conference room. Training for baseball and softball usually peaks from September through April, although private instruction and clinics run throughout the year by appointment to more dedicated players.  We also offer our space to players involved in other sports, such as Youth Football, Soccer and Lacrosse as avaiable open space is limited.

We have extended our offerings to team construction and management.  Shortly after opening the doors, during the 2013 winter an opportunity to coach an 11 year old team arose.  We constructed the available roster spots through open tryouts and competed as the Fox Valley Fury in a local travel league and competitive tournaments.  The team showed success on the diamond, but through proper training, also displayed game play above its age level.

One year later the demand for Infield teams increased and the team count grew to ten. Players wearing our uniform come from 22 surrounding towns.  Local families wanted to take advantage of our coaches who are former players that competed at the college level and above. All of our coaches travel with the team and run the dugout.  Today our players range in age from 10 to 18 years old.  They are students of baseball that train throughout the year, continually working toward higher levels of play.   With the growth, we consulted with the design firm that created our company logo to work through branding and identity.  First, we changed our team name to The Infield A's to align the team with the facility and engaged our designer to create a team logo consistent with the company logo.  The result was a unique logo which has been very well received and has become known in the local market.  We are in the process of copywriting the design.

For 2015 we will manage 8 travel teams under the name the Infield A's that will compete in league and tournament play.  We have consolidated the number of teams to increase the compeitive ability across the ages and to make the program manageable in year three.   

We continue to offer team training for travel and rec league teams, coaches' clinics, camps, classes, private lessons, group lessons, tunnel rentals and field space rentals. Training for baseball and softball is becoming more of a year-round offering as more people learn about our cirriculum.

Our competitors have proven to miss the needs of the market.  Training is conducted in buildings with 10-11 foot ceilings, narrow widths and columns in play. Competitors' instructors, although often well versed in their respective areas of expertise, are often uninspired, lack teaching skills and fail to understand the value of relationships. 

Our building is ideal for training up through the college level and our instructors have a history of building relationships.  We have engaged customers as far as 42 miles away that travel to work in our facility for these reasons. Our staff meets to discuss relationship building and customer service. Our instructors are as qualified as any that a major competitor offers, and better qualified than most.

We opened our doors to the sports community in December 2012 and have made headway into building awareness through league play, tournaments, camps and lessons. In February of 2013 we were featured in an execise story on Chicago ABC 7 News television on Super Bowl Sunday morning's newcast  Click Here to See Story We also support local recreational leagues, participate in charity events, local parades and we have advertised in local town and school publications. We have achieved substantial traction since we opened the facility.  

In 2014 The Infield has served as the weather backup indoor facility for NTIS Great Lakes tryouts.  NTIS (National Team Identification Series)  is the system from which Team USA is chosen.  The Great Lakes region covers players from five states.

We have secured a relationship with US Baseball Academy to host a six week training event in January and February.  US Baseball Academy is a company that manages a national network of baseball and softball camps run through approved facilities.  USBA runs three months of advertising to fill approximately 200 open clinic slots for six weeks of baseball skills training. 

We are set to expand the team beyond baseball and softball. We are now exploring football, soccer, and speed & agility training at high levels.  We have identified instructors and are in the process of building on that goal.

Beyond indoor training and activities, we have uncovered potential opportunities in ancillary revenue streams. 

Our initial goal in the first 6 months was to build a database of 500 baseball contacts. Currently, we have a database that is 2,500 strong.

We wanted to open with operating cash flow at or above 50%.  We are at 58.8%. We are on pace to meet our goal of being at a cash flow breakeven point in 2014 and cash flow positive in 2015.

We have built and grown our team with strong, professional instructors and coaches.  Our customers describe our instructors as mentors that their children have developed relationships with.

St. Charles North High School baseball, the St. Charles North Stars and the South Elgin High School Storm Softball team train in our facility.

In the short time since we opened, we have secured multiple travel teams and organizations to train in our facility in the upcoming winter.  We are near capacity for the winter of 2015 (January - April).

Don Plantz, President

Don has served as a commercial banker, compliance officer, project manager and business analyst. Over 20 years has served as a coach and board member for several Little League, softball, American Legion League and travel teams. Locally, he has remained very close to the baseball and softball community.

He generally manages the business and personnel.  This includes finance, accounting, marketing, website maintenance, sales, quality control, legal, etc.  He also manages organizational relationships such as South Elgin Little League, South Elgin Parks and Recreation, St. Charles North, travel organizations and other large influential entities. While certain individual tasks are distributed among the other partner and staff, Don oversees the entire operation of the company.

Dustin Gilbreth, Director, Baseball Operations; Coach, Instructor

“Dusty” is an eight year instructor and coach.  He is a graduate of North Central College with a degree in Business Management where he played at the catcher position and was captain of the team. He is certified in speed, strength and agility training.  Dusty brings a personal book of business with him in excess of 100 customers.

He is a valuable and capable resource as a manager in-training.  Dusty constructs our programs and is learning to apply business concepts to business plans and tie these back to strategies for profitability, identity, branding and other critical long term plans.

Sean Doherty, Coach, Instructor 

Sean is a former player and current varsity infield coach at St. Charles North High School.  He played four years of college baseball at the shortstop position, two years at Parkland and two years at Charleston Southern before graduating with a degree in Business Administration.  After college, Sean played two years of Rookie League Ball in the Tampa Bay Rays system.  

He is very much in demand due to his teaching style and attention to detail.  He is also very close to the local baseball community including high school coaches, college coaches, scouts, NTIS leaders and other influencers in the baseball and general sports community.

Brian de la Torriente, Coach Instructor 

Brian pitched for one year at Northern Iowa before transferring to the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  After graduation Brian coached for one year in the North Stars organizaton on the 14U team before joining our team in 2013.  Brian is our in-house pitching expert and coaches a 13U team.

We have also added coaches and instructors that work with our players on a contract basis:

Jake Kane - Catcher, Judsen College; Andrew Kronke  - Outfielder, Concordia University; Nick Mitediero - Catcher, Bradley University; Scott Harm - 3rd Baseman Elgin Community College.