Infield Maintenance

[RobD]

Do any of you do the infield maintenance on your field? I have been trying to do what I can with our field in town and also plan to do some work on our elementary school diamond as that one is not well taken care of. What material is on your diamond? Do you use the sand/clay mix or one of the other mixes that are basically finally crushed gravel? Our main diamond had material added last spring and I was tol it was a 70/30 mix of sand/clay. Well it gets very loose and sandy when it dries out. I tested it by using a half glass jar of it and filled it with water, shook it up and let it settle. Sand is on the bottom and the clay/silt is on top. Then just measure the total amount in the jar and each layer, divide it out to get the percentages. What was on there was 80/20 which explains why it is so sandy. I got some material from a local sand/gravel place that when tested is 60/40. I am sifting it and adding it as I can. I just took about 3 -3 1/2 yards down this weekend and will see how it holds up after it is practiced and played on. Any ideas on how to firm it up without it costing alot or getting to hard?

Rob

 

[SoCalDad]

I have found some good ideas on this website in the past: Athletic Field Services - Frazier's Field Repair - Ohio Region.

 

[RobD]

Thanks. It does have some good articles. This diamond has been there for years and about the only thing done with it is it gets run over with a drag. I have been watering it the night before high school games and it gets drug the day of the game. I think I can get the field in decent shape, get rid of the low spots, etc. The biggest challenge will be the big lip that has built up over alot of years of use. Anything I do comes from my own pocket to. I would have to wait until the in town rec league games are done as anything done would require the edge of the grass to get tore up. I can try something like a sod cutter and knock the dirt out of the sod and lay it back down, or use a power rake behind a tractor and rake up the grass and roots and just re-seed. I am somewhat picky with this kind of thing to, since when people know who did the work, I want it to look good to. I just hate doing things like this half-a$$ed. If we would get some rain to soften it up, I would work it with a rake and see if it could be knocked down some.

 

[John T]

RobD,

Our fields are made up of Agralime which I think is just finely crushed limestome. It packs very well and can be drug so that there is a soft layer of pouder on top (The deeper the drag the bigger the layer). The only problem is that our base soil is clay and does not allow the water to drain so it is very soft (Oatmeal like) after a good soaking rain.

The surface is very "True" and unless the ball his a rock there are very few bad hops.

We also have a big lip on our field that has build up over the years from improper dragging. We have had several kids with cut lips as a result (Thank god nothing worse). The kids that work the field drag to the outside and this causes a lip on the outside edge of the field. The only way to get rid of it is to blade the edge off and reshape the infield either by cutting sod (Making it much bigger)or replanting grass. We will be taking a blade to it late summer.

 

[Hoover's Dad]

I work a consierable bit on our local fields, we had to fix a lip this spring. We had to remove about 6ft of sod , then used a small tractor with a box blade. We will resod the area in late summer. From experience, scoop up all the sod and haul it off. Trying to get the dirt out by hand is to much sugar for a dime. you can drag some of the piles of sod around with the tractor and get a fair amount of the good dirt out .

We have 2 boys fields w grass infields that were built about 5 years ago. We were starting to have lip build ups at all the bases and the outfield lip. I have been useing a high pressure water hose whenever possible this year to blast the dirt out of the grass. The water has help the lips tremendously!