WHAT IT TAKES: Polishing The Diamonds

The popping of mitts, pinging of bats and cheering of proud parents that create the nighttime soundtrack at Sugar Sand Park's baseball diamonds owe their concert to crews that began toiling in the early morning hours, making the scene possible.

Groundskeepers don't spend their mornings admiring sunrises but rather staring at the ground determining the day's game plan.

“The first thing you ask groundskeepers to do when they come out to look at the field is just kind of assess the situation from the previous night, how wet the clay is and what the next possible steps are going to be,” said Jim Gannon, the City of Boca Raton's district supervisor for athletic field maintenance.

Gannon is well versed at reading the clay. A graduate of the highly regarded turf management program at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, Gannon's been keeping District fields playable for nearly 13 years.

Clay is the surface for the basepaths, pitcher's mounds and foul ground at Sugar Sand (the entire infield at District-owned Patch Reef baseball and softball fields are clay). Gannon and his groundskeepers study the the clay, but they are looking for water.

“They will decide based on the moisture whether they need to nail-drag before to let the field dry out,” Gannon said. “If they don't, then they can maybe start on some other processes. Usually, the fields always going to be too wet in the morning, so they will do the hand-raking, getting the mound ready, and things like that, until the field dries out a little bit more.”

With the excess water removed and the clay having been leveled, it's usually time to re-introduce water to suit the needs of that particular day's events.

“If there's a game that's later on in the night, we might water a little bit heavier,” Gannon said. “If it's a high school playing on Field 5, we would not water as heavy during the day, because they're going to be out there earlier. So one of the main points is that you have to really focus on what's going on at night, and then managing the field for those night's events.”

Water is always on their minds. Throughout the day, especially as the summer wet season sloshes into high gear, groundskeepers constantly check the skies and their radar apps to see what might be on the way.

Sugar Sand's six diamonds and Patch Reef's three diamonds have small, round tarps that cover the pitcher's mounds, but it's impractical to cover the entire infield like professional stadiums do. 

“I think that one thing that Boca does, as far as another level than a lot of other places, is that we do tarp mounds, so we we expect our mounds to be in a little bit better shape than other places,” Gannon said. “One thing I really like about here is their dedication to make things a little bit nicer at this level.”

Most mornings water is applied through a sprinkler system and via handheld hoses, keeping the clay soft and preventing the infield and outfield grass from withering.

“There's a lot that really goes into almost every single day, but a very basic maintenance program is that hopefully we have the clay level to where we want it before lunch,” Gannon said. “After lunch is the watering, lining, and making sure everything looks game ready.”

All of this must be completed by 2:30 p.m. to open the fields for public use. The youth practices and games that follow are scheduled so closely together that there isn't time for routine maintenance between games.

Outfield upkeep is a little less rigorous but no less important. During rainy season the Bermuda grass is mowed three to four times per week. The outfield and infield grass is kept to a height of three-quarters of an inch.

And then there are other problems somewhat unique to South Florida.

“It's more frustrating when you have an iguana that one night or one afternoon randomly buries or digs a huge hole in the outfield,” Gannon said.