Any observations on the field turf?

[Scooter]

Tell us poor out-of-towners what the field turf was like...

 

[TheGallopinGoose]

Scooter derails yet another thread...

I thought the field turf was alright. You had to get used to the brown grass and seeing little rubber pellets get kicked up whenever the ball hit the ground. The turf didn't really affect the game play; players were still able to get down some bunts like before.

 

[davert]

It plays much slower than the AstroTurf. Bounces seem to be truer. The little explosions of black powder evertime a ball hits it is something to get used to. It plays to this team--run manufacturing by bunting and sacrificing.

 

[mandingo]

We are going to bunt teams right off the field.

 

[4th]

It seemed as though players were surprised by some of the hops. From my experience on field turf, the spin of the ball changes the bounce dramatically on field turf and the first bounce is always different than the rest. Overall, it is just a different field of plastic that looks incredibly unnatural with no dirt. Batters digging their back foot into plastic blades with rubber pellets just ain't right.

 

[Goodfellow]

Is the mound dirt, or can you play baseball in a rain storm on this field?

 

[TheGallopinGoose]

^
The mound is dirt.

 

[Endust]

I was actually impressed as to how good it looked on video.

it will be interesting to see how well the area around the plate wears over the season.

 

[dbfootball]

My Pictures from the Game;

UI-C Vs. Texas

 

[Lost_In_Ohio]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know that the bases and home plate were carpet also. That looks, and probably plays, absolutely terrible. Who thought that would be a good idea to have no dirt around the base paths and at home? There is no way that it will hold up throughout the whole season.

 

[petscii]

Washington has had the turf dish/base paths for a few seasons and to be quite honest, it took me 2 seasons of going to notice they were not dirt.

The dish looks pretty nasty sometimes, but so did the dirt section by the end of the season. Texas Tech's facility looks tons better than Husky Ballpark so it might be a $$$ thing.

 

[Lost_In_Ohio]

Petscii, I can only imagine how bad home plate looks come May. I just don;t like the idea of nixing the dirt. I think that when dirt is taken care of properly, it would be better at home and around the bases than the field turf.

I was just talking to my buddy and he said that stuff plays very natural and is glorious to slide on.

 

[torre]

I read an article (sorry I don't have quote) that stated that field turf cannot be vacummed so dirt has to be kept to the pitchers mound only. When you see the material fly up when a ball hits the ground, this is understandable.

(Scooter, please post more often, nice pic)

 

[RecklessKelli]

I honestly liked it. Maybe that's because I'm so used to the concrete we used to have in there, but the ball definitely bounced truer. No more singles to left bouncing over the fielder's head, and no more squeeze bunts making it all the way to the outfield wall.

As far as the concerns about the dirt, I read that they can't have real dirt (minus the mound) because they wouldn't be able to vacuum it up from the turf without vacuuming up the rubber pellets. I thought this would bother me, but from the article I read that quoted the players it doesn't bother them. Several slides were had yesterday and they looked like it was no problem. One thing I thought was interesting was that evidently when it rains that turf becomes crazy slick and a player would need to start a slide about halfway in between bases. Almost like sliding with a tarp on the field.

 

[Scooter]

1. The green turf looks a lot "greener"

2. Have the fair poles always been burnt orange?

3. So is the ground crew down to one person?

 

[Pericles]

There were only a few people tidying up the infield at mid-game during the first game on Saturday -- one on the mound with a garden sprayer and a soil leveler; one at home and one at first using wide push brooms to level and redistribute the rubber.

Between the games, they did hook up a hose behind the mound to wet it down and resurface it.

It took a bit of getting used to at the first game (on Friday), but it doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

It DID look like they had used some sort of tool before the game on the turf around the perimeter of the mound. If they used the vacuum like they did on the previous turf, I'm not sure why they couldn't do the same thing around dirt sliding pits.

But maybe the visible circle around the mound was simply the mark left by a wide push broom (used to redistribute the rubber there).

My understanding is that the head groundskeeper (an expert on grass who came to Texas because he was told they were going to grass in a few years) has moved over to the softball team to take care of their natural grass.

 

[Horns11]

The vacuum would pick up too much of the rubber, which wasn't a problem with the old artificial surface.

 

[ViperHorn]

On some of the pictures of third, the turf looks worn (actually the rubbercoming to the top I believe). I assume home looks the same after a few innings. Do they work the rubber back down during the game?

 

[Endust]

thanks for the photos, dbfootball.

 

[zork]

Those photos are awesome.

 

[Anton]

I wasn’t there but I also thought that it looked very good on the webcast. I know that no matter what most traditionalist will not like or embrace the new field turf (especially the fact that there is no dirt around the bases or plate) and I am one who prefers the tradition baseball diamond with grass and dirt the way it’s always been…but the Disch is what it is, and there is no point complaining about.

Also the fact is that the new turf fits right into the style of play for Texas – slower turf to help infield defense, and losing the crown on the field that the previous astroturf created plus the slower infield will produce truer bunts.

So bottom line is that is that the new turf will help Texas win ball games, and to me that is more important than some dirt around the bases.