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: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/43432
FieldScience | Gerald Henson, Chad Kropff, & Dr. Erik Ervin >> CHAD KROPFF checking elevation of landing areas Qualitative comments about the four Quantitative and qualitative comparison of baseball mound clays P ITCHERS VARY IN THEIR PREFERENCE for mound clays used for toe plates and landing areas mostly based on differences in their aggressiveness of delivery. Field managers need information about mound clays in terms of ease of installation and re- pair, but they must also keep pitcher prefer- ences in mind. Ultimately, a clay should be chosen that meets the preferences of the ma- jority of home team pitchers while not re- quiring undue maintenance and expense. This study was conducted with these con- straints in mind. MATERIALS AND METHODS A 4-mound bullpen was constructed at the Virginia Tech Recreational Sports Facility in February 2011. A sandy loam was hauled in and used for fill to ensure level mound and catcher's areas. The toe plates were set and leveled at 10 inches, and then a 2 x 2 foot landing area was installed of each individual clay product. A 1 inch per 1 foot grade was maintained using string lines. Toe plates and landing areas were checked with a transit, 8 SportsTurf | October 2011 with clay being added or removed to ensure proper elevation relative to home plate. The clay products used in this study were donated by their respective companies. They were: • Mar Mound (Southern Athletic Fields, Inc.) • Turface Professional Mound Clay (Pro- file Products LLC) • Diamond Pro Professional Mound Clay (Diamond Pro/TXI) • Pro's Choice Pro Mound (Pro's Choice Sports Field Products) materials: Mar Mound is a red clay that is very soft and fine. It flowed directly out of the bag and was quite easy to work with. No preparation out of the bag was required. Turface has a purplish-brown color and is also quite soft and fine. Turface acted more like a sand as you could pour it out of the bag and it was very easy to break up small clumps. No preparation out of the bag was required. Diamond Pro Professional Mound Clay is a unique product compared to the others. It was extremely dry out of the bag and required wetting for 24 hours before mound use. We found it easiest to pour a few bags at a time onto a concrete floor and add water as needed until a workable consistency was reached. However, using a concrete mixer for this process would have been more efficient. Once mixed, it tended to get clumpy requiring much more hand-work as opposed to the Mar Mound and Turface products which could simply be raked out. Pro's Choice Pro Mound packing clay was also unique compared to the other products. The bagged product was clumpy and hard, with many of the chunks too large to use right away. Bags had to be poured onto a concrete floor and chunks broken apart with tamps, sledge hammers, or digging bars. Water was then added to soften the product and make it easier to work. Similar to Dia- mond Pro, this product was hard to rake and had to be formed by hand to install. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| MAR MOUND TURFACE DIAMOND PRO PRO'S CHOICE >> MOUND CLAYS: Each product had a distinct color, particle size, and workability when taken directly from the bag. www.sportsturfonline.com By