How it All Began
On a cold January day in 2004, Fastpitch Nation founder and owner, David Rocha, walked into a local baseball training facility with his little 9-year-old daughter looking for pitching lessons. He found an awful lot for boys and almost nothing for girls. That night when he got home, he told his wife what he had seen and that there needed to be a place like that for girls. So began the journey of education and research that went around the country and back to decide what to build. Fast forward to 2008 when Fastpitch Nation in Bloomfield, CT opened. The 24,000 sq ft facility not only had batting cages and pitching lanes, but a real field with a natural clay infield. Over 14 years the facility hosted more than 5,000 games, 3,000 team practices, and 200 tournaments and leagues. The pandemic put a terrible strain on the company and in 2022 closed the facility and sold the building.
The Move Outdoors
In 2010 USSSA reached out to Fastpitch Nation about leading the effort to bring USSSA fastpitch tournaments to New England. Fastpitch Nation took on the challenge and signed an 8-year contract with the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Club in East Hartford, CT to use their slowpitch facility for fastpitch. Fastpitch Nation did many renovations at the park to make it playable for fastpitch softball and so began that journey that started from zero to becoming the largest and most respected fastpitch tournament provider in New England.
Creating Fastpitch Nation Park
In 2015 after hosting the first USSSA Nationals ever held in New England, we knew to grow and serve the teams to the level we wanted, we would need to build a park of our own. After an exhaustive search and countless negotiations with many municipalities, it was a private landowner in Windsor, CT, Mark Greenberg, who truly understood what we wanted to do and welcomed us to lease his land to build our park.
In 2019 Fastpitch Nation Park opened its gates with 11 fields, boasting the largest and finest dedicated fastpitch facility in the Northeast United States. Since 2019, we have hosted more than 5,000 teams and played more than 15,000 games. We led all youth sports back to playing in the 2020 pandemic and set the tone for how it could be done safely with many places around the country emulating our process to get back to playing softball.
At end of the 2020 season we ended our 11-season relationship with USSSA and formed the PlayFPN Tournament Network, instantly becoming one of the largest independent fastpitch tournament providers in the country. Since then, other independent tournament hosts have joined the network in CT and neighboring states and it continues to grow with 14 regional host running PlayFPN events.
Fastpitch Nation and Day Hill Dome
In 2023 the Day Hill Dome, a brand new state-of-the-art 95,000 sq/ft opened right next door to Fastpitch Nation Park. Its primary use is for rectangular sports such as soccer and lacrosse. However, the owners have graciously made time for Fastpitch Nation to rent field space to host leagues and tournaments. In 2023-24 we will host two leagues and nine tournaments at the Day Hill Dome.
