The Blue Jays are installing a dirt infield:
Here’s the dirt on the Blue Jays’ reported infield renovation: Work will begin next week on converting what had been cutouts around the bases and home plate into a full-dirt infield around the bases, baselines and home plate.
On Wednesday, the team announced via a press release that the plans — previously only alluded to on Twitter — were officially in motion.
“We are very excited to proceed with this project,” Blue Jays VP of business operations Stephen Brooks said. “This will both improve the surface for the players and also enhance the atmosphere of the stadium for our fans.”
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, artificial surfaces came into vogue. At first they were built with dirt infields, but eventually only the sliding areas and warning tracks were dirt. There was a real difference at that time in terms of fielding. Balls hit on the smoother artificial surfaces gave truer bounces, leading to fewer misplays due to uneven infields. Today, grounds keeping improved greatly. I doubt there are any stones in the dirt used on the infield today. The surface is combed every three innings. The advantages of a total artificial surface are not there any more.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1nKvYjD
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