Most Dangerous Part of the Field

[YOCOACH]

I can honestly say that in the 8 years I've been coaching I have yet to see this happen. Maybe it's the fields we play on; I don't know. We practice on some pretty rough fields. I've always taught the girls to attack the ball to take the bad bounces out of it. I'm not saying that they haven't taken a few bad hits because they have...especially in the indoor all dirt facilities. However, it was never because of the lip of grass on the field. I'm sure it will happen some time or another though.

 

[quincy]

Maybe it is our fields but I have seen 4 players get dropped because of this, easily could have been more,

 

[FPMark]

Alot of times this is caused by always dragging the field from the outside in (grass to pitching plate). That will tend to move the dirt towards the center of the infield. It helps to alternate from outside in, to inside out. If a lip is developing, you can drag inside out and let the draging screen lap over about one foot onto the grass on the last pass. This will allow the dirt pulled by the screen to help fill in along the lip. Then take a broom and sweep the dirt on the grass back to the edge of the dirt. It also helps to dampen the grass and "tamp" the grass down along the lip. Sometimes the lip gets too bad to fix without a steam roller, but a 3 ton steam roller and a 4" trench cut in the dirt along the grass, will usually fix it. The problem is finding someone to do it.

 

[Momo'sDad]

I can honestly say that in the 8 years I've been coaching I have yet to see this happen. Maybe it's the fields we play on; I don't know. We practice on some pretty rough fields. I've always taught the girls to attack the ball to take the bad bounces out of it. I'm not saying that they haven't taken a few bad hits because they have...especially in the indoor all dirt facilities. However, it was never because of the lip of grass on the field. I'm sure it will happen some time or another though.

I don't know where you play, but I do know that in Ohio, there are a lot of mature fields where the lip is nice and smooth. If that's the case at your fields, that would explain why you've never seen what Quincy is describing.

I've seen multiple players take bad hops off the lip and a couple have been hit in the face. Only 1 of these that I've seen required medical treatment, but the amount of blood scared a lot of parents and some of the younger girls.

You can't put players right there behind it. They've got to be in front of or at it, or they've got to be a few steps behind. Even if your outfielders are wearing masks, that part of the field produces very unpredictable hops.

At our main fields, because of poor engineering design, there's no way for us to keep the infield dirt on the field. The fields aren't that old (6 years or so?), but the lip is as bad today as when they first opened. I have spoken with some field managers from nearby towns and they've shared some tips on addressing it, but our drainage issues are pretty unique.

FPMark, it looks like steam roller rental isn't too expensive, so that's something I'll bring to our board. Our drainage problems are so bad, though, that we spend most of our energy trying to save the infield dirt.

 

[YOCOACH]

Yeah...the face hits are what scares me the most. That's why if the girls are on the field, they are in masks...period. As for the fields, they are 50+ years old and the other sets are older. We also always drag from the pitchers mound out so that may explain it. Also, my old rec league where we practiced dropped $50,000.00 in a mixture of field dry, ground pebbles and Georgia clay mix (apparently it's the same mix MLB uses on their infields) over the last 3 years and tilled it in to a depth of 6". This alleviated the dirt loss due to the slope of the fields.

 

[FPMark]

If you are having trouble with drainage, it's time to check into having the fields lazer graded. Our HS had it done a couple of years ago and it cost about $5000, including dirt. Someone on here a while back mentioned they had their fields done for alot less and they would come back every year and maintain them for $300. I think that was per field, but still, that's a good deal if you are fighting with drainage issues and losing dirt.

 

[02Crush]

Also, my old rec league where we practiced dropped $50,000.00 in a mixture of field dry, ground pebbles and Georgia clay mix (apparently it's the same mix MLB uses on their infields) over the last 3 years and tilled it in to a depth of 6". This alleviated the dirt loss due to the slope of the fields.

Gotta Love that Georgia Clay!