Repairing an Old Field

Yah Hoo! My favorite kind of question!

Ist things 1st. I don't care if you're in the Sahara Desert, if you're gonna be playin' baseball there and you can't afford to miss many games, IT WILL RAIN!

My guess is, the runoff expected was to get rid of the snow melt off ASAP rather than having the water make a big mess. There are some fairly cheap and easy things to do to give you some decent drainage without the big hump, but my guess is, you neither have the time nor money to start that kind of project.

But, let's not give up on that for a few minutes because as sure as I'm sittin' here, that slope is creatin' one of my most un-favorite situation with the mound, but we'll get to that soon enough. I'm gonna guess that if your field is that old, around the entire inside and outside of the infield dirt, there are great, ugly "lips" that have been formed over the years by dirt being dragged or kicked off of the infield. If that's the case we'll be able to kill two birds with one stone.

Let's only talk about outside the dirt 1st. To do a really #1 job, we want to get some drainage there to keep as much water off of the dirt as possible. Go down to the local equipment rental or find someone with a sod cutter willing to let you use it. Normally, a sod cutter will cut a 1' wide swath. What we want to do is to cut 3' of sod all the way around the infield dirt. that includes down the base paths and home plate area too,

Once that's done, if the sod is really good and healthy, lay it out in the shade if possible or on the infield dirt if not. But wherever you put it, make sure to keep it moist. NOT WET!, Moist. Of course, if there is a sprinkler system in that area, you'll need to take care not to destroy it. now you need to dig a trench!

BTW, It goes without saying that once you remove the sod, you should use the sod cutter to remove any excess buildup (lip). Just make another pass or two to loosen the soil and remove it! do the same around the entire infield grass, cut at least 2" all the way around, remove the excess and then relay the sod, or if its really bad, replace it with new sod or put some topsoil down and plant seed. Make sure when you put seed down, you use a good quality seed recommended for sports playing fields in your area and that you keep the newly seeded area moist for at least 2 weeks or until the grass is at least 1" tall.

Find someone with a level and make your trench about 1' deep at the highest point. Then dig your trench so that it is about a foot wide and use the level to make sure the trench slopes to the lowest point on the field. When you get to the area behind home plate, make sure you have a "take away" trench that will either drain to an open low spot, or preferably a real storm drain. It would probably be a good idea to run a trench in front of the backstop too since that will always be the lowest spot.

In the bottom of the trench, put about 4 inches of gravel. On top of that, put a 4" perforated flexible drain pipe, and on top of that, you fill the trench with gravel. Do not use gravel that's too small! For this purpose, I wouldn't use anything smaller than one inch gravel. When you put the sod back down where you trenched, cover the rocks with sod except for the middle 2" and don't forget to roll the sod!

Now that you have some drainage in place, you can take the 1st steps in raising your field. Before you start the trenching, make sure you put down a good broadleaf killer on the entire infield. Turfbuilder Plus II is excellent if you need some fertilizer as well as weed killer. Treflan will work if the grass has been fertilized regularly.

Allow two weeks for the weed killer and fertilizer to do its thing before you start to "raise" the field. Assuming it will take the better part of a week to do the trenching, applying the chemicals at least a week before should give you plenty of time.

Raising the lower areas of the field is really pretty simple. Mow the grass down to about an inch. Then, use spread a layer of sand. In the lower areas, behind and around home plate, apply between 1/2" and 5/8" of DRY sand. As you move toward the highest areas, reduce the layer until when you get to the highest area, no sand gets applied at all. it wouldn't hurt to sparsely seed the entire area that gets top dressed.

After the sand has been applied, use a field drag to "knock" the sand down into the grass and smooth out any high spots. Don't be afraid to drag a lot! After that, water in the sand! You don't want to flood it! All you want to do is make sure the sand gets fully moistened.

Be extremely careful at this time about water! You want to keep it moist during the day, but try to let it dry out at night. You are putting that grass, which is just a short plant, under a tremendous amount of stress! If you apply too much water at night under those conditions, the plant won't be able to absorb it and it won't evaporate. Now you have created a condition where mold and other diseases can go crazy! Once the grass get an inch above the sand, you're fine. If you really want to make the infield slick, use a roller after watering.

Now, all you need to do is to reapply the sand until you get the infield as level as you can. if its this time of year, you should be able to reapply sand about every 2-3 weeks. The only things you need to remember is to not go getting sand over the rocks in your trench, and to keep applying more rocks to raise the trench as you raise the field.

Now comes the most important thing and you can't forget to do it! Every time you apply you'll in effect be lowering the plate, so you'll have to do something to counter that. what I'd do is raise the plate 2 inches and raise the infield dirt as necessary before doing anything! Then go ahead and use the level to set your pitcher's to the 10". That will allow you to apply the top dressing 5 or 6 times before needing to raise it again!

If you top dress and sparsely seed religiously, using care not to be sloppy, control the weeds and fertilize regularly, you should have that field pretty darn nice in less than 2 years. You can even apply light coats of sand during the playing season if you like.

I know that sounds like a lot of work, but it honestly isn't that bad. Once you've put in the trench, and that really isn't absolutely necessary, the rest is pretty simple. Cutting and replacing the sod to fix the "lips" is also a pain in the butt, but its also not that hard to do. The nice thing is, the trench and the sod only has to be done once and top dressing can be done whenever you get some time.

The whole thing shouldn't cost more than a few hundred bucks and some volunteer time. But, before you start something like that, let me warn you about something. You will more than likely not take players or anyone else "dissing" "your" field, very well!