go_rascals
06-13-2006, 05:35 PM
Got the chance to visit V.A. Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe last week and check out the new field turf. I was a little apprehensive at first, since I'm pretty much against any kind of artificial turf, but to paraphrase a car commercial, "This is not your father's artificial turf."
This stuff is miles beyond the Astroturf we saw back in the 1970s and 1980s. There's two inches of silica sand beneath a layer made up of ground-tire "pebbles" and ground-tennis shoe "sand". The "grass" seems to have about the texture of plastic grocery bags. The whole field is turf, including the basepaths and the mound. The field is completely flat except the pitcher's mound, which is built up of sandbags covered witha tarp and then the "pebble"/"sand" mixture. The players actually like it pretty well, except for the Rascals pitcher, who had such a long stride that at the end of his motion he landed on the seam between the mound and the infield.
The field drains about a foot of water an hour. There's no need to drag or water the infield; the grounds crew just scoops a shovelful of the plastic pebbles on whatever low spots develop. One of the most interesting things I noted was that the "dirt" kicked up whenever a ball bounced off it, just like natural turf.
On the whole, if you have to put down artificial turf, this is the way to go.
Here's a shout out to Scott Graham and Doug Kimsey, who showed me a good time while I was there and helped me plug my Frontier League history website.
Tim
This stuff is miles beyond the Astroturf we saw back in the 1970s and 1980s. There's two inches of silica sand beneath a layer made up of ground-tire "pebbles" and ground-tennis shoe "sand". The "grass" seems to have about the texture of plastic grocery bags. The whole field is turf, including the basepaths and the mound. The field is completely flat except the pitcher's mound, which is built up of sandbags covered witha tarp and then the "pebble"/"sand" mixture. The players actually like it pretty well, except for the Rascals pitcher, who had such a long stride that at the end of his motion he landed on the seam between the mound and the infield.
The field drains about a foot of water an hour. There's no need to drag or water the infield; the grounds crew just scoops a shovelful of the plastic pebbles on whatever low spots develop. One of the most interesting things I noted was that the "dirt" kicked up whenever a ball bounced off it, just like natural turf.
On the whole, if you have to put down artificial turf, this is the way to go.
Here's a shout out to Scott Graham and Doug Kimsey, who showed me a good time while I was there and helped me plug my Frontier League history website.
Tim