SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/517437
FIELD SCIENCE 28 SportsTurf | June 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com FACILITY & OPERATIONS of the skin but it isn't as aggressive. I use the 72" daily to control moisture and after every game when I am just looking to scratch the surface to smooth minor fluctuations. The overall conditions, wetness, smoothness and how deep I want to cut are rolled into the decision on which nail drag I am going to bring out. Daily my objective is to maintain the surface; I don't want to cut too deep. I usually try to stay under ¼" and most commonly I am around." Finally I have the leveling board which is an upside-down nail drag. I use both sizes depending on the situation. My 72" works like a box blade to help keep my infield level and smooth. I use this regularly to help keep my infield level throughout the season. It also does a pretty good job of evenly distributing conditioner across the skin surface. There are many different ways to drag an infield. Find what works best for you and provides the outcome you are looking for. Don't be afraid to experiment. DAN BERGSTROM, director, major league field operations, Houston Astros We drag the infield by hand before the game with our 6'x18" metal mesh drags. We use the same hand drags in-game, unless the clay is very wet, in which case we'll use our cocoa mats. Post-game we use a standard three-wheeled bunker rake type machine to finish drag the field. The machine is a bit more aggressive than the hand drags and will break up any small clay bits quickly. We prefer the metal mesh drags for all finish work to leave the surface completely flat, with no ridges of conditioner at the edges of each drag pass. As the hand-drags get used, the edges can become deformed or bent, so we spend time maintaining those edges to avoid leaving ridges of conditioner on the surface. We replace bent drags as needed for the same reason. ANDREW SIEGEL, University of Texas-Arlington I have a home made nail/ spike drag I will use when needed. I gen- erally try to avoid using it to often so maybe twice a week. Before games I will use 2'x6' screen and we use 5 during the game after the 5th to clean it up. Post game I will also use the screen except after night games. If it is a cool damp night I tend to hand drag again or use a 2'x6' cocoa mat to glide over the top. PATRICK COAKLEY, CSFM, Sports Turf Superintendent Ripken Baseball, Aberdeen, MD The majority of the time we use a Rahn groomer to drag which has fine spring tines and a broom attachment. This works well depend- ing on the amount of play and level of moisture control. During tournaments on the stadium field, sometimes the tines and broom are not enough, especially when things start to dry out. Then we use a standard steel mat drag that is 8ft wide by 1ft. long. The spring tines and broom attachment gives you the same result as hand raking and brooming the entire field. The depth of the tines is controlled from the driver seat so you can adjust accord- ing to conditions, but usually we just barely scratch the surface so as not to get too loose. This set up allows you to drag the field without moving much dirt at all (like you would with the steel drag mats). So you are able to smooth thing out with less disruption of your grade. The broom then finishes nicely. You do have to make sure you take care of the broom. If you get a couple of bristles bent or out of whack it will leave streaks. When conditions are less than ideal, like during the days we play four or five games in a day, sometimes the tines and broom are not enough. During these particular days we will dry out even though we water before each game. So we will use one of our 8' wide hand drags that are shortened to 1' in length. We shorten the length to try to minimize the amount of loose dirt we pull out of the position areas that get roughed up during tournament play. During our professional games (Aberdeen Ironbirds) we drag in the 3rd and 6th inning with four 8' wide drags to make sure we get full coverage. I have tried using the big brooms you can pull by hand but didn't like them. I don't have an abundance of amendment on the top layer of the skin but I would still pull all of it into a pile with the brooms and end up leaving humps. It may have been operator error, but I decided it was safer to stick with the standard mat drags. OPIE CHEEK, field supervisor Philadelphia Phillies, Clearwater, FL Yes I use a 6x3' steel flex drag before and after game, 4x5' rubber mat if wet. Shorter drag so it won't pull to much material. And five 8x2' steel drags at the 3rd and 6th innings, 8 foot brooms if wet. ERIC BLANTON, CSFM, director of grounds, Reno Aces We use only hand drags/broom on the INF here. The only time a Sand Pro is on the skin is when nail dragging in the morning. All hand drags are rigid and they are used post nail drag, pregame, in-game and postgame. We do use a 6' hand broom following our hand drag before pre-game watering. On our infield the rigid drags leave the least amount of lines, streak and/or clumps once finished. The finish broom is to remove any imperfections that may have been left on the infield to ensure a smooth playing surface. JORDAN TREADWAY, Director of Grounds and Facilities Roger Dean Stadium We use a 6' x 2' flex steel mat drag with a leveling bar for our pre and post-game finish drag. We like this particular model because it seems to accumulate less material to take off when finishing. The leveling bar is great for knocking down high areas and collecting the bigger chunks. For our in-game drags, we use four 8' x 2' non-flex stiff drags with a composite wood board on bottom to pull less material. On the days where weather comes into play and we have a slightly wet- ter skin area, we go with the 7' drag broom for a nice finish. Also in our repertoire is a 6' x 2' non flex stiff drag with leveling