Every Summer the baseball and softball fields are busy almost every night of the week. Whether those nights are busy with practice, scrimmages or games, the fields are always being used. On majority of these nights, the fields even have multiple games being played on them. Whenever there’s a game taking place there are different rules and layouts that need to be done ahead of time, such as chalking, pitching distances, dugouts, fences. With all these events taking place on the fields, there are many things that need to take place in order that the fields are ready for every game.
The city of Lennox has 4 different ball fields: Big Field, Little League (baseball), Softball, and T-Ball field. All four of these fields have multiple ages being played on them and somethings in the same nights. As groundskeepers, it’s key for us to make sure we know what age and what distances need to be marked out. We have a batter’s box layout that has a softball and baseball layout in one. We make sure our batter’s boxes and pitching rubbers are level every day as we use a rake to relevel the boxes and pitching rubbers, then use our drag’s weight and pack down the agra line before we drag the field.
On the big field, distances never change. However, on the other three they do. The Little League field will have certain leagues that require different distances. In the past, the city has bought a turf mound for the boys to pitch off, which is great for groundskeeping purposes but also for the pitchers. The league the teams play in this summer will not be having turf mounds in playoffs, so the coaches have requested us to remove the turf mound. So we staked in a pitching rubber at 48 feet as the league requires.
The softball field has quite the change for pitching distances. There are four different age groups that have league play on our field so marking the distances is key. We have used our markers for different distances. Right now, we have our 8U (yellow) 30’, 12U (pink & yellow) 35’, 10U (orange) 40’, 14U (yellow) 43’, and the back two pink markers are for the back corners of the turf pitchers’ pad that is used for high school. When this turf pad is used, the rubber sits at 43’ as well. After moving the pitching rubber to the right distance, we need to mark the right chalk layout. Softball uses a different batter’s box than baseball and there needs to be a pitcher’s circle along with halfway marks laid out for runners.
The T-ball field is used for T-ball and 8U baseball. We have that field’s pitching rubber at 30’. This field has the best drainage of all fields. Earlier this summer, the field received over an inch of rain and was able to be played on that night. Every night we see the youth of Lennox out having fun on our great facilities. The grounds crew works hard to maintain our fields and also work to improve our fields whenever we can.