More turf talk
Because of the Wild Things' announcement of a new manager last week, this was one of two stories I pushed to the back burner:
Florence (Ky.) City Council unanimously approved spending $750,000 to $1 million to replace the grass at Champion Window Field, shown above (click on image for larger view), with artificial turf.
The city owns the field, which is home to the Florence Freedom, and rents the ballpark to the team.
Apparently, the ground is settling unevenly and the grass is unsuitable for the Northern Kentucky climate (it's Bermuda grass - apparently they couldn't find any Kentucky Bluegrass in Kentucky). I know players from other teams often complained about the playing surface, which was bad when the park opened and hasn't gotten any better.
Freedom owner Clint Brown said it would cost $250,000 to fix the field. Brown said the Frontier League has banned play on the field unless something is done before the 2009 season.
"It is, right now, unsafe to play on the field," Brown said.
A guy named Butch Rankin collected a petition opposing the spending for artificial turf.The petition had 230 signatures, but his plea was rejected by City Council.
"When going door-to-door, I only found five who were in favor of this," Rankin said.
Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee told City Council in September that the league recommends that all fields switch from grass to artificial turf because it’s a better, safer playing surface. All new Frontier League fields are now built with turf instead of grass.
With Florence switching to fake grass, there will be only two ballparks in the East Division with an entirely grass playing surface: Washington and Kalamazoo. The Midwest Sliders, who will be playing their home games at Eastern Michigan University, will be playing on a field that has an artificial turf infield and grass outfield.
Labels: Artificial turf, Champion Window Field
posted by Chris Dugan at
8:34 AM
6 Comments:
Any news with what Washington will do? Sorry if there has been and I am ignorant and or unaware. I remember the WT playing last year with an almost constant puddle in shallow Right Field. They either need to actually FIX the outfield or just go ahead and put in the Field Turf.
No I expect to see some comments about people worrying about the parking lot prices.......
Remember the toupee Bill D. used to wear.
That could be a start on turf for the stadium.
hopefully washington doesnt get a turf field, baseball isnt baseball unless its played on real grass
Thats true but baseball isnt baseball with craters in the outfield and on the warning track.
Baseball should be played on natural grass. But the Wild Things, don’t do just baseball. And that’s why we like having them in town so much. CEP is similar to Heinz field in regards to the amount of activity on the surface, It’s far too much. There wouldn’t be any problems with the field if it wasn’t opened up in March for high school and college baseball. Between the concerts and the other special events up there, the poor grass just can’t recover.
Lets be realistic, a lot of the people who go to games on a regular basis, not the zealots that are on this site, but the regular people that go would never know the difference. It could be like Boise State, and 98% of the people would still go to the games. And the players are just happy to play, send them into the parking lot and they’d still all play.
I say either put turf in or give the grounds keepers and management a break. We are way too far north to be playing baseball in mid March.
Oh yeah, its not really at all on those taking care of the field. I remember last year the WT had a few days on the road in July when the field could use a few days off and there were high school and collegiate summer ball games being played. That just adds to it. I hate turf but CEP needs it because the field just cannot handle all the games/events that are held there.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home