How to drag the field?

[Rick M]

I'm willing to give it a go. So you do figure 8s and then slowly rotate one direction? Seems that would take longer to hit every spot. And what patterns does it leave on the field (just curious).

It definitely takes longer, it’s not a shortcut. It leaves a swirling pattern. Almost like a bunch of Venn diagrams.


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[uncdrew]

I'll give it a go.

Because I do a few laps around the exterior before I do my spirals, maybe I'm leaving the dirt in the infield and not adding it to the lip. Hmmm...

I do like my spirals.

 

[PJR202]

I enjoy dragging. I like to drive the girls to practice in the golf cart, and that was a primary dragging vehicle for us for a while. The AT tires kinda leave their own patterns, but overall it worked well. There's an accessible mower now, though. I always do it in a circle starting at the rubber after I make a couple straight passes in the immediate vicinity of the rubber.

We drag most days when the weather has been good. If we get a super dry spell and the field gets really rough we'll drag it with a nail board to get the dirt loosened up a couple inches deep. Then go back over it with the normal drag. If we dont do the full drag after practice we'll generally go rake the base areas. The best thing is a light drag before you know a rain is coming in. It ends up nicely leveled out.

 

[Northball]

Definitely guilty of multiple counts of the circle pattern. Mostly in between games for our local tournament where we're trying for a quick turnaround to the next game. Outer perimeter I go slower so I'm not throwing so much dirt outward, and I stay away from the edge of the grass.
I might have to think of how to modify the figure 8 since we're trying to stay out of the pitcher's circle to preserve the chalk line and not drag over the pitcher's clay.

 

[RJK]

If you have to drag the field by hand, does it change any of the information on here?

 

[ArmWhip]

If you have to drag the field by hand, does it change any of the information on here?

I maintained a small D3 college sports complex. I used a fan rake on the outside, I raked from the edge in. Then circles with the drag until the turn was too tight, then back and forth. Now I take care of a varsity field for the school I coach at. I use a small metal doormat drag and pull it behind my fold up E-bike.

There are so many types of infield mix from clay to stone dust to native soil, all potentially mixed with drying agent and some irrigated, some not, that it's hard to make specific recommendations. Rock salt will keep a non-irrigated field somewhat moist, I have used it on the mound and around the plate. Just don't go to heavy or on a hot, humid day the material will get too wet.

 

[Northball]

...Rock salt will keep a non-irrigated field somewhat moist, I have used it on the mound and around the plate. Just don't go to heavy or on a hot, humid day the material will get too wet.

Interesting....I suppose it keeps weeds from infringing into the infield, too.

 

[Dabears17]

We played on a field where the pitchers were landing in a hole about 8 inches deep. Both our pitchers got injuries and we told them to just move so far over on the pitchers plate that you could try to land flat. We told them we didn't care about their performance, just their health. We complained politely to the Tournament Director and then contacted the field management.

As a pitcher parent, I am still debating if I'll simply tell them my DD can't pitch if the conditions are so bad.

I helped @obbay last year by doing fieldcrew at his daughter's memorial tournament. We did a light watering, dragged the field, and tamped down the pitcher's lane and the batter's boxes, plus touched up the lines between each game. I've only been involved in 4 round robins/tournaments in my coaching career as the host, and we did field maintenance between each games.

When she was 10 my DD twisted her ankle at a tournament because there a hole in the shape of a right handed foot drag in hard surface in the pitching lane and she is a lefty.

I emailed my Duraedge support person yesterday and he said if you are putting clay in your pitching lane and home plate area, you need to treat it like a baseball field and cover those areas when the field is not in use.

 

[ArmWhip]

Interesting....I suppose it keeps weeds from infringing into the infield, too.

A lot depends on the type of material the field is made of. With the D3 complex that I managed there were no hose hookups by the baseball bullpens, which were clay. The mounds needed moisture and rather than put 3-4 lengths of hose together and drag them to the pens I tried the rock salt. At first it was great, then we had a stretch of very humid weather and the mounds got too wet, they were greasy, sticky and slippery. I think the rock salt works best on an unirrigated field where the mounds and batter's boxes get too dry and powdery. If you put too much down it's easy enough to mix in more clay/soil and dilute the mix. It will kill weeds but if you get a heavy rain after you apply it the salt could run off into the grass and kill some of it. Spot treatments would work fine though.

Calcium chloride is used on Har Tru tennis courts that don't have irrigation to keep them from getting too dry and dusty. The Har Tru is similar to stone dust and has excellent drainage.

 

[Rolling Hard]

We had the buildings & grounds guy from a huge nearby school district (20+ fields) come to our rec league once to give coaches a primer on field maintenance. He said doing the circles outward from the pitching rubber was the most common way of dragging, but also the worst. It basically deposits all the dirt around the outside edge, creating the dreaded lip.

He recommended a figure eight pattern. Stole these from groundskeeperu.com:

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This is what I was looking for! Thanks