Has anyone ever seen a facility use them? I haven't here in the NY/NJ/PA/CT area and I am continually amazed that organizations/towns/facilities will spend millions of dollars on fields and not spend another $2K-$4K on a tarp. Especially places that host Nationals. It seems like a smallish investment to protect major money making tournaments. Yes, a lot of newer facilities are going to turf fields when they have the option, but I was just curious if tarps (specifically infield tarps) are used in your areas.
Field Tarps
- Thread starter NJZoo
- Start date
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Our association is talking about getting them but they require a small army to put out and remove. We have two people maintaining the fields and would have to call people out to put them on and take off.
Yes to the army. Granted it was a full sized baseball tarp, but in college all freshman/sophomores were responsible for tarp duty...getting the call at 4am on a 42 degree drizzly morning...so much fun. And it definitely took all of us to move that thing.
The army to move them is one issue. Also, for fields that aren't fenced off/private/secure/etc., there is the issue of vandalism and people being dumb. Kids ride their bikes across, wear their cleats walking over them, neighborhood slip-in-slide when it rains, and your tarp has holes everywhere. About the only thing I've seen covered around here are small tarps over a pitching mound on baseball fields, or the home plate area.
They are not practical unless you have a secured facility with a full time grounds crew. As many have said, it takes 10+ people to roll them up or out and if you leave them down overnight they often get torn up by idiots. What tournament is going to have 10 people on standby just in case they need to roll out tarps? They would spend all of their profit on the extra personnel.
A local facility on Long Island has them on several fields used for tournaments. In seven years of playing at the facility, I have never seen them used once. It's mind-boggling.
