SportsTurf

IRRIGATION & DRAINAGE 24 SportsTurf | March 2016 www.sportsturfonline.com FIELD SCIENCE ■ BY ANDY OMMEN O ne of the most frequent questions I get asked is "What is the most important tool you can have when maintain- ing a baseball field?" My answer is always "time." Baseball fields cannot be maintained on a whim or a moment's notice, especially if you expect to provide your ath- letes a safe, quality playing surface. It isn't a basketball floor that needs a mop, or a soccer pitch or football field that might need mowing. As long as there is wind blowing, grass growing, or rain falling you need to be on your field. And the result can be a safe, well-manicured ball diamond. No matter how busy or how vacant your field is, you have to maintain it. So often I see high school fields left unattended and neglected in the off-season because nobody is around to take care of it. This is your time to perfect it with no deadline time constraints. Step up, make the effort and take the time to con- tinue to maintain that field. The better you maintain it the less work and expense it will be when season rolls around and the safer the playing conditions. If your time is limited, prioritize by: Safety Playability Consistency Aesthetics The second most important tool is attention to detail. It is the little things that matter so much. There is no more important area on your field than the 12 inches of grass or 12 inches of dirt from any of your dirt/grass transition areas. Keep your grade level between those areas. I tell my crew if they can close their eyes when they drive a vehicle off the infield skin into the grass and still tell when they are in the grass, we have a transition issue that needs to be addressed. Take the time after every event to walk each line and pull every single piece of dirt out of those areas you see. It may seem small now, but if it repeats itself over and over hundreds of times, it will not be so small anymore. We walk the edges and hand pull any chunks of infield clay out of the grass, then we walk through with a broom and we broom the 12 inches of grass toward the infield dirt. This will pull loose material out and help maintain grade and prevent lip buildup. It is important to not broom the dirt away from the grass edge however, or this will have a negative effect on maintaining grade between the two areas. We religiously drag our fields after every use. This is key. Take your time when dragging, pull the bases and stay away from the edges. We make sure we vary our points where we enter and exit the field every time as infield dirt will come off the tires of our vehicle into the grass. As always we stop well short of the grass and lift the drag to deposit any spoils in the drag screen on the field and do not pull it into the grass edges. We also frequently nail drag our fields. If you can nail drag with some moisture on the field that is the best time. Buy or build a light- weight nail drag. You only want your nails penetrating ¼-½ inch at most so you do not need a lot of weight. I see people piling weights on their drags and digging up their infield skin. If you do that, you lose footing, playability, and you will have a swamp next time it rains. We are only loosening up ¼ inch of material to fill in spike marks and allow your drag to move material around. After nail dragging we will then drag with a large mesh drag, then finish with just the end of a stiff steel drag using only about 6 inches of it. We try to do this entire process by maintaining moisture in the skin. If we can do this, the weight on the wheels of our vehicle help pack the material back together and provide an optimal surface. We also have a 1500-lb., pull-behind roller we will frequently use to make sure our skin stays packed firm. These details are what separate a high-quality baseball field from an average to poor field. It not only promotes a safe playing surface but also attracts your better athletes. Are your better athletes going out for a different sport during baseball season? If they are, what does your baseball field look like in the off-season? If your baseball field is maintained to a high standard as they walk by, then they may want to be a part of that sport. If they walk by and see an overgrown infield loaded with weeds, rusted fences, poor playing conditions, why would they want to be a part of it? As an athlete, I would be thinking, "Is that the way the coach is going to coach his team?" Or, if the field is well maintained, athletes may well think that the base- ball coaches know what they are doing! As the groundskeepers of a six-field baseball complex we consider ourselves as having some of the highest quality youth fields in the Midwest. We consistently attract players we normally would not attract simply due to the quality of our facility. It's awesome to hear people say, "I want to play there because of the fields." EASIER MAINTENANCE FOR MULTIPLE FIELDS At my level and the budget my facility has and the 230+ games a year played on each one of my fields, it is impossible to maintain every field at a professional level of quality. However that does not mean you cannot put out a very high quality, safe product. Watching the little things and details becomes even more critical. Know the causes of your problems and focus on those. BASIC BASEBALL FIELD MAINTENANCE

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