Maintaining great infields straight from the pros
21 Mar, 2009 By: Ron Hall Athletic Turf NewsSAN JOSE, CA —There's no magic bullet to expertly maintaining baseball or softball infields, and every grounds manager does it differently and has his or her own special techniques. But when you get right down to it, as an expert baseball grounds manager the two things you have to know about are water and dirt. And that's not just any dirt; that's dirt in those special silt/clay mixes that give baseball infields that seemingly impossible characteristic of being both firm and offering a soft, cork-like feel at the same time.
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That's what you learn when you listen to a group of Major League Baseball head grounds pros discuss how they keep their infields in tip-top shape. Since infields are were 75% of the action of all baseball and softball games takes place, that's how a baseball grounds manager's skills and dedication are graded.
In other words, if you're looking to someone else for the perfect recipe for getting your park or school fields up to MLB playing standards, you may not find what fits your situation. The better route is to borrow from the pros whatever tips and strategies work best for your budget and style, and build your own unique program.
Baseball grounds pros — and, yes, being Major Leaguers, several of them have developed somewhat of a swagger — shared their field-maintenance strategies at this past January's Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA) Conference here.
On hand at the Conference to discuss how they keep their infields in shape for today's millionaire baseball players were: Larry DiVito, formerly with the Washington Nationals and recently named the head groundskeeper for the Minnesota Twins; Bill Deacon, New York Mets; Gary Vanden Berg, CSFM, the Milwaukee Brewers; Dan Bergstrom, Houston Astros; Chris Ralston, Lake Elsinore Storm and Mike Boekholder, Philadelphia Phillies. Another dozen professional grounds managers, including several from Major League Soccer and Darian Daley from the NFL Cincinnati Bengals, joined them at a special field-maintenance event sponsored by Turface Athletics at the San Jose State University baseball field to end the annual STMA event.
DiVito, who recently made a career change by moving from the Washington Nationals to become the head grounds pro for the Minnesota Twins, stressed the importance of "having a plan" before launching into any major infield project.
"Focus on time management," he said. "Know what you're going to do, and how you're going to do it." That starts with walking around his field every day. "I want to get a feel for the texture of the dirt," said DiVito, who, beginning his 15 th year in professional baseball, has plenty of experience with dirt.
When he took on the job as head groundskeeper for the Nationals a couple of years ago he supervised the rebuilding of the infield at RFK Stadium where the team played before moving into the new Nationals Park in April 2008. That task involved the removal of 11 inches of soil from the old infield and replacing it, starting with layers of pea gravel, washed sand and layer after layer of infield dirt over the course of three days.
"It was the second craziest thing I ever did," said DiVito, not sharing the first craziest thing he's ever done.
Deacon of the Mets suggested that grounds managers carefully test the materials that they use on their infields. "We test our dirt every year. We want to know what our infield mix is," he said. "You're paying good money for that material."
Deacon said some of the material that had been used on the Shea Stadium infield (the Mets are moving into their new Citi Field in April) created problems. "We spent three years picking rocks because they kept working their way up," said Deacon.
But testing doesn't end with just the material you use on your infield, he said. Test the depth of the dirt on the infield itself from time to time, too. It's not uncommon for the infield dirt to vary considerably from one area of the infield to another. For example, he discovered that the dirt was 10 in. deep behind second base but only seven inches deep at third base on his field.
Next in importance to the quality and consistency of the dirt is water management, almost every one of the grounds pros stressed. "You have to have some moisture in the infield," said Deacon. How much? Deacon said that's often a matter of personal preference. "A lot of it comes down to how you can get it (the infield surface) to do what you want it to do."
Gary Vanden Berg of the Brewers agreed that baseball infield maintenance procedures probably vary considerably from field to field.
"Every one of us has a different infield mix probably. What's important is how you manage it," he said.
Vanden Berg spent several minutes describing perhaps the third most important tool in the grounds manager's maintenance arsenal -- the butt-ugly but indispensable nail drag. He said that his crew regularly changes the direction of how they nail-drag his field. "If we go clockwise, then the next time we do it counter-clockwise. If you keep dragging in the same direction you'll be pulling material from one area and putting it in another," he said, adding he prefers to hand-drag around home plate and the baselines.
The Editor: Look for Part II of baseball infields from Major League Pros in next month's enewsletter.
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