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/56877
Facility&Operations | Q&A How do you mark your lines? How do you mark your foul lines and batters box for baseball and/or softball? Do you use limestone, aerosol paint, bucket paint or something else? What equipment do you use to put it down? JIM WIGGINS, Tomball (TX) School District First we nail drag and then smooth the dirt areas. We water dirt zones if needed and proceed with stringing out the base- lines and using the batters box templates (see photo). The final step is using Beacon Pro Chalker with the 2-inch or 4-inch line option. We prefer the 2-inch lines as they use far less chalk and have less build up and residue. Upon completion of markings we will sometimes give field a light water- ing to hold markings if windy or dry that day. The foul lines are painted using our Graco FieldLazer, from the back edge of our infield dirt to the fences on the grass areas of the field. These lines are 4 inches wide and painted usually every 2 weeks. We chalk the dirt areas every game, which translates to at least two times a week, sometimes three. We use Diamond Pro field marking chalk, Pioneer Bright Stripe bucket paint, and sometimes Pioneer Max aerosol if field is wet from rain for quick results and set up. Equipment: Beacon Pro Chalker, Graco FieldLazer, Pioneer Max Aerosol paint buggy, Tomark Batters box templates. JOSHUA KOSS, San Diego Jewish Academy • We pull our lines tight while the bases are in. • After our lines are lined up correctly and secured tight, we remove the bases and brush back the calcined clay along the line with a broom (at least 4 inches). • After it is completely clean of calcined clay and debris, we water it down with a watering can. After the water percolates into the dirt, we paint the line twice. 22 SportsTurf | March 2012 We use aerosol on the dirt, bucket paint in certain circumstances, but very rarely. Time is of the essence. It's much quicker to paint the lines with aerosol than to mix up some paint for such mini- mal painting. Equipment: We use a 2-can aerosol striper. If the lines do not get painted straight, we will use a stencil and stencil it out by hand. Time does not allow for us to stencil, so very rarely do the lines not get painted straight. Depending on turf con- ditions, we will use our airless sprayer with a stencil to paint the lines in the grass. But like I said, it is time consuming to mix up a bucket of paint for such minimal painting. CRAIG SCHLENDER, Mary Rountree Evans Field, Baraboo, WI We use a chalk type line for our lines and batters boxes on the infield mix and the foul lines and coaches boxes are painted. For the infield mix lines we use Sparkle # 6 this gives us a nice bright white line that stays put very well. During tournaments when we have many games in one day we will spray the lines lightly when watering the infield and this will set the line so it will last more than one game in many cases and only touchup is necessary for the next game. We use World Class and Pioneer paints to do the lines on the grass. We use a Stream Liner applicator to apply the chalk and normally a 2 inch line for the infield mix lines. We will do a 4-inch line for high profile games; the Stream Liner applicator gives us that option. Our painted lines on the grass are done weekly with a CO2 bulk mixed paint sprayer that we use on all of the fields in the system. During the heavy grass growing season we will touchup the lines as needed with aerosol cans. During real heavy use periods during the high growth times we may take a push mower and mow the foul lines a bit shorter before spraying the lines to get a longer lasting line. We have also used a growth re- tardant mixed in with the paint but you have to be very careful when applying this not to overdo it. This can happen when you have to redo a line or an equipment problem happens. ERIC BLANTON, Reno Aces We mark our foul lines via string line and batters boxes via stencil. We use aerosol paint. We use an aerosol paint striper. RON HOSTICK, San Diego State Baseball lines: aerosol with a 4-wheel painter, box only; gypsum with a 2-wheel chalker. Softball we use all aerosol with the 4- wheel painter BART PRATHER, Mississippi State We chalk everything in the dirt areas and paint all grassed areas. We use limestone chalk on dirt and con- centrate paint (mixed one to one ratio) on grass. Walk behind chalker and FieldLazer for painting. ERIC HANSEN, Los Angeles Dodgers Our outfield foul lines are painted by hand with a 4-inch roller. Our baselines and boxes are painted pregame with white aerosol paint using a paint striping ma- chine. The thin lines of our box are created by turning the aerosol can sideways. www.sportsturfonline.com