How do you mark your lines?

22 SportsTurf | March 2012 www.sportsturfonline.com

Facility&Operations | Q&A

JIM WIGGINS,Tomball (TX) School District

First we nail drag and then smooth thedirt areas. We water dirt zones if neededand proceed with stringing out the base-lines and using the batters box templates(see photo). The final step is using BeaconPro Chalker with the 2-inch or 4-inch lineoption. We prefer the 2-inch lines as theyuse far less chalk and have less build upand residue. Upon completion of markingswe will sometimes give field a light water-ing to hold markings if windy or dry thatday. The foul lines are painted using ourGraco FieldLazer, from the back edge ofour infield dirt to the fences on the grassareas of the field. These lines are 4 incheswide and painted usually every 2 weeks.We chalk the dirt areas every game, whichtranslates to at least two times a week,sometimes three.

We use Diamond Pro field markingchalk, Pioneer Bright Stripe bucket paint,and sometimes Pioneer Max aerosol iffield is wet from rain for quick results andset up.

Equipment: Beacon Pro Chalker, GracoFieldLazer, Pioneer Max Aerosol paintbuggy, Tomark Batters box templates.

JOSHUA KOSS,San Diego Jewish Academy

• We pull our lines tight while the basesare in.

• After our lines are lined up correctlyand secured tight, we remove the bases andbrush back the calcined clay along the linewith a broom (at least 4 inches).

• After it is completely clean of calcinedclay and debris, we water it down with awatering can. After the water percolatesinto the dirt, we paint the line twice.

We use aerosol on the dirt, bucketpaint in certain circumstances, but veryrarely. Time is of the essence. It’s muchquicker to paint the lines with aerosolthan to mix up some paint for such mini-mal painting.

Equipment: We use a 2-can aerosolstriper. If the lines do not get paintedstraight, we will use a stencil and stencil itout by hand. Time does not allow for us tostencil, so very rarely do the lines not getpainted straight. Depending on turf con-ditions, we will use our airless sprayer witha stencil to paint the lines in the grass. Butlike I said, it is time consuming to mixup a bucket of paint for such minimalpainting.

CRAIG SCHLENDER,Mary Rountree Evans Field, Baraboo, WI

We use a chalk type line for our lines andbatters boxes on the infield mix and the foullines and coaches boxes are painted.

For the infield mix lines we use Sparkle #6 this gives us a nice bright white line thatstays put very well. During tournamentswhen we have many games in one day wewill spray the lines lightly when watering theinfield and this will set the line so it will lastmore than one game in many cases and onlytouchup is necessary for the next game.

We use World Class and Pioneer paintsto do the lines on the grass.

We use a Stream Liner applicator toapply the chalk and normally a 2 inch linefor the infield mix lines.

We will do a 4-inch line for high profilegames; the Stream Liner applicator gives usthat option.

Our painted lines on the grass are doneweekly with a CO2 bulk mixed paint

sprayer that we use on all of the fields inthe system. During the heavy grass growingseason we will touchup the lines as neededwith aerosol cans.

During real heavy use periods duringthe high growth times we may take a pushmower and mow the foul lines a bit shorterbefore spraying the lines to get a longerlasting line. We have also used a growth re-tardant mixed in with the paint but youhave to be very careful when applying thisnot to overdo it. This can happen whenyou have to redo a line or an equipmentproblem happens.

ERIC BLANTON,Reno Aces

We mark our foul lines via string lineand batters boxes via stencil.

We use aerosol paint.We use an aerosol paint striper.

RON HOSTICK,San Diego State

Baseball lines: aerosol with a 4-wheelpainter, box only; gypsum with a 2-wheelchalker.

Softball we use all aerosol with the 4-wheel painter

BART PRATHER,Mississippi State

We chalk everything in the dirt areasand paint all grassed areas.

We use limestone chalk on dirt and con-centrate paint (mixed one to one ratio) ongrass.

Walk behind chalker and FieldLazer forpainting.

ERIC HANSEN,Los Angeles Dodgers

Our outfield foul lines are painted byhand with a 4-inch roller. Our baselinesand boxes are painted pregame with whiteaerosol paint using a paint striping ma-chine. The thin lines of our box are createdby turning the aerosol can sideways.

How do you mark your lines?How do you mark your foul lines and batters box for baseballand/or softball? Do you use limestone, aerosol paint, bucketpaint or something else? What equipment do you use to putit down?

SportsTurf 23www.stma.org

JOSH KLUTE, Haymarket Park, Lincoln, NE

I mark my lines with plus 5 chalk while using a string linewith pre-measured anchors in the ground for the string to set in.I use gravity drop boxes for my batters and catcher’s boxes, butfor the baselines I use a walk behind chalker. I still like usingchalk over paint because I think it stands out better than paintand I don’t mind picking it up after games.

PETER THIBEAULT, CSFM, Noble & GreenoughSchool, Dedham, MA

To mark out the fair/foul lines we use a spool with cable thatwe can pull very tight. The best part on using this is the cable liesreally flat in the turf and skin. For the batter boxes we made tem-plates out of 1 x 3 stock and use a nail to trace then paint as well.The paint tends to hold up well even when we have to re-applywater.

We started about 4 years ago using aerosol to mark the skins. Icould never get the chalk to come out real smooth and alwaysseemed messy.

Doing this early in the morning when moisture tends to behighest is easiest for us. Painting instead of chalking requires care-ful moisture management in the skin to work best

We use Max aerosol field marking paint with a max aerosolstriper. Both are Pioneer Athletics models and the cool thing isthat they offer an aerosol chalk now so one machine can do both.

I'm not trying to promote any vendor but we have tried a fewand Pioneer tends to offer great service for us.

MONTY SOWELL,Northwest Arkansas Naturals

We paint all our lines using World Class Athletic bucket paint. We use a Model 120 Trueline Stripper made by Turfco Manu-

facturing to paint with. It is undoubtedly one of the greatestpieces of equipment we own.

GRANT SPEAR,CSFM, UNLV Athletics

We paint baseball and softball lines using a combination ofaerosol and bucket paint. We run string along the lines and paintwith a sprayer before the start of home stands then remark the linesin the dirt during pregame with the aerosol paint. ■

I still like using chalk over paintbecause I think it stands out betterthan paint and I don’t mind pickingit up after games.

— Josh Klute


Facility&Operations

Gallery of mowed patternsEditor’s note: Occasionally we like to highlight readers’ work in offering pleasing aestheticsby mowing patterns into their grass. Here’s our latest gallery:

MURRAY COOK ofThe Brickman Groupand former STMApresident has been in-volved with baseballand the Olympicssince the sport beganbeing a part of the

Games. He said, “We did this for the 2000 Summer Olympics butafter the first few games we were asked by the technical delegates toremove the rings because they were concerned the ball would turnin a circle when hit in the outfield. True story!”

SCOTT FALAHEE, Frank Joranko Field, Albion College, Albion, MI

JESSE PRITCHARD, Sports Turf Manager, University of Virginia

JOSH SLAYBACK, City of Clayton, MO

CHRIS MAY, Claude Smith Field, Mercer University, Macon,GA. May is now sports turf manager for The Westminster Schoolsin Atlanta.

KYLE WATERS, The Home Depot Center, Carson, CA

ALAN SIEBERT, CSFM, Peoria Sports Complex, Peoria, AZ


BRADLEY KIRKLAND, Plainsman Park, Auburn University

DINO PICHA, St. Mary's University’s Divis Field, St. Louis MO

LUKE YODER, Petco Park, San Diego


Facility&Operations | By Mike Tarantino

THIS IS A VERY BROAD SUBJECT and is highly subjective. Weall know no two people are alike and

this holds true for school board membersand administrators. All of us involved withK-12 schools should know that boards’ andadministrators’ number 1 goal is education;what we have to make them understand isthat a safe and aesthetically pleasing schoolis paramount to teachers, students and thecommunity.

There has been a lot of research on thecorrelation of well-maintained schools vs.student achievement that dates as far back asthe 1920’s. Let’s face it, we have come a longway since then, however, one thing remains:schools are the hub of the community andare not just a place for education to occurbut also a place for children and adults toplay.

Did you know that children spend up to24,000 hours at school (K-12)?

With that introduction, I can only relatemy relationship with my school board, ad-ministrators and the community and how it

came about. I have broken this out in toseveral key headings and subheadings.

Communication. GET OVER YOURFEARS! The school board, administratorsand community members are all human be-ings. After all, they hired you to do a job.Do not be hesitant to approach them withan idea that could benefit the school com-munity. Remember that a majority of theirtime is spent on improving education andyour sports fields may be the furthest thingfrom their mind but remember to relateyour idea to how this will enhance the learn-ing quality of the children, improve staffmorale and provide a recreation area for thecommunity.

Become visible. Attend school boardmeetings. Yes, these are usually held in theevening, but deal with it and go. Makeweekly meetings or do a weekly report toyour supervisor, director or superintendent,let them know what you are doing to im-prove the school community. Attend localyouth and or adult recreation meetings,offer to present at these meetings and mostimportantly, listen to their needs. Make sureto follow up with requests from thesegroups because no one likes being ignored.

Visit your school sites and make sure notto ignore anyone. Visit with the coaches,teachers, principals and the children. Every-body’s opinion is important and everybodywants their opinion heard. I have learnedmore from coaches about the little things inthe way to prepare their field for their par-ticular team than I have from any book. Ilike to call communication the art of listen-ing, understanding and then responding; dothis and people will begin to recognize youand what you do.

Documentation. School boards, admin-

istrators and community members are re-sults driven and want documentation orproof. Document your successes to betterhandle the “what have you done for melately” syndrome. Take pictures of your proj-ects start through finish, include team workin the pictures, include equipment usedowned, rented or borrowed. Finally, write areport to go with the pictures along withcosts of the project. Have an end goal inmind. This could be as simple as showingwhat you can do to improve the schoolcommunity or as ammunition if you wantto purchase a piece of equipment, for exam-ple, document the rental cost vs. purchase.Provide a cost analysis if this is your goal.Show man hour savings and the number ofadditional projects you could complete withthis particular piece of equipment. Here isan example:

A 10-acre field will take the 60-inch deckmower approximately 3 hours and 15 min-utes. An 11-foot deck mower will mow thesame 10 acres in approximately 1 hour and15 minutes, a 2 man/hour savings per 10acres. If the operator mows 100 acres thesavings will be 20 man hours.

Twenty man hours x $480 (20 hrs. x$24.00/ hr.) per 100 acres x 52 weeks equals$24,960 per year. The 11-foot deck mowercould pay for itself in approximately 2 years,or a gain of 1,040 man/hours per year.

DOCUMENT YOUR FAILURESI know what you’re thinking, I can’t show

my failures. Yes you can, but you need toshow and let the school board, administra-tors and the community know what youlearned from that mistake. Some of mybiggest successes came from failures.

Use tools that are available to you, like

Working with school boards and administrators

>> MIKE TARANTINO, director of maintenanceand operations, Poway (CA) School District.

Visit your school sites and make sure not to ignore anyone. Visitwith the coaches, teachers, principals and the children. Everybody’s

opinion is important and everybody wants their opinion heard.


soil sampling and the Playing ConditionsIndex (PCI). I cannot believe how many ofus don’t use these FREE resources, yes free.Wait a minute soil sampling cost money,you say, but if you talk to your suppliersmany will offer this service to you for free. Iperform soil sampling once a year on myhigh profile play fields and every other yearon my multi-use recreational sports fields.These soil samplings dictate what needs tobe done on my fields and in many waysprovides documentation for budgeting pur-poses (fertilizers, soil penetrants, etc.).

The PCI is simply a great tool providedby the STMA. This is documentation at itsbest. If you haven’t used the PCI, youshould. The PCI can provide documenta-tion on the safety, playability and aestheticquality of your sports fields. I have begun todocument other information on the PCI. Inow record weather, products used (fertil-izer, pesticides), seed variety if a renovation;topdress material, irrigation schedule, sup-pliers etc. If you can, include pictures withthe PCI when submitting this documenta-tion to the school board, administrators andthe community.

Maintenance standards. If you don’thave them, develop them and share them.These are simple maintenance guides, the“what we are going to do and the when weare going to do it.” These standards answerour customers’ questions and lessen theamount of phone calls to the school boardand the administrators from our customers,the schools and the community. These stan-dards need to be shared with your staff;they will serve no purpose if your own staffdoesn’t know what they are.

Get out of your box. With the state ofthe economy many of us are being asked todo more. Jobs are being eliminated andthose survivors are taking on additional re-sponsibilities. As budgets continue totighten, sports turf managers are now oftenbeing asked to become facility managers, es-pecially at K-12 facilities. I hope you viewyour stay at your organization as an educa-tional adventure and a means to grow. Youshould have been watching your peers man-age facilities so that you were ready to ad-vance or simply help out with aproblem/crisis that wasn’t yours to manage.

The natural disasters that plague our

country are a good example—would you sitback and watch as your facilities were beingdestroyed or would you be on the frontline?When rebuilding occurred did you justworry about your sports fields or did youassist in bringing normalcy to your facility?School boards and administrators are wellaware of those that support this type of ef-fort, while you may not get the “thank you”

you were looking for, believe me, your ac-tions or inactions are noticed.

Although every situation is different, youmust be able to adapt to your situation. It isall communication. ■

Michael Tarantino is director of facilitiesfor the Poway School District, Poway, CA,and sits on the STMA Board of Directors.

30 SportsTurf | March 2012

SPORTS SURFACE IMPACT TESTING (fieldhardness) has become an integral part of the syn-thetic maintenance process. Test results can indicate

that a field is in good condition, as well as pinpoint areasof concern.

The Synthetic Turf Council recommends a minimumtesting frequency to be at the end of year 1 and the end ofyear 3. Other industry experts and/or field specificationsoften recommend annual testing. That’s a lot of data! Dueto the large amount of data, the test reports may be some-what difficult to interpret. In this article, we’ll break downthe field hardness test report, so that the field manager canunderstand it better and find the information that is mostimportant for success.

The field hardness test report is a two-page report (seeFigures 1 and 2). This report includes field conditions andtest results from evaluations performed at multiple loca-tions on a single field. In Figures 1 and 2, we have dividedthe test report into five sections to aid in finding informa-

Facility&Operations | By Sam Ferro

Understanding field hardness test reports

>> Below: Figure 3. Graph from research published in February1990 by Voigt R. Hodgson, Ph.D., Director Biomechanics Labora-tory, Department of Neurosurgery at Wayne State University De-troit, Michigan in his paper titled Impact, Skid And RetentionTests On A Representative Group of Bicycle Helmets to Deter-mine Their Head-Neck Protective Characteristics.

>> Figure 1.

>> Below: Figure 2.


tion and explaining the data. Figure 1 is thefirst page of the report, and Sections 1 to 3are found on page 1. Figure 2 is the secondpage of the report, and Sections 4 and 5 arefound on page 2.

Section 1: Basic information regardingwhen and where the test was performed.Also included are the weather conditionsduring testing.

Section 2: This section has summaries oftesting performed and test results. This isthe heart of the test report, and containsthe information that will likely be of mostinterest to sports turf managers.

• Testing Method: Testing is typicallyperformed according to guidelines detailedin ASTM F1936. F1936 provides specifi-cations for equipment to be used, how andwhere tests are to be performed, and fieldperformance requirements.

• Point: Testing points refer to locationson the field where test measurements areperformed. Different locations are speci-fied per ASTM F1936 for different types offields (football, soccer, lacrosse, etc.). Typi-cally eight test points are specified by themethod and two additional points aretested at the discretion of our field techni-cian. If desired, additional points can alsobe tested and reported.

• Total Depth and Infill Depth: This in-formation can provide insight for evaluatingproblems or trouble areas. Depths are typi-cally not mandated, but turf manufacturerspecifications often indicate acceptable fiberlengths, infill material, and infill depths.Total Depth is the depth from the top ofthe turf to the backing (synthetic fields) orsoil (natural turf fields). Worn or lost turfcan cause a harder or softer field and impactperformance. Infill Depth is the depth ofinfill materials that are between the turffibers. Infill is used to provide desired play-ing conditions, and can act to protect turffibers. Typical infill materials include sand,rubber, and other materials. Most, but notall, synthetic fields have infill material. Un-even infill depths can lead to varying hard-ness and performance. Loss of infill mayalso lead to turf damage, and is a significantcause of variance in field performance.

• Gmax is the maximum value of G en-countered during an impact. G is the ratioof magnitude of missile acceleration duringimpact to the acceleration of gravity, ex-

pressed in the same units (G, being a ratio,is unit less). The number reported here isthe average of the second and third drop ateach test point. The maximum impact levelof <200 average Gmax, has been acceptedby the U.S. Consumer Product SafetyCommission. ASTM F1936 states that:“According to historical data, the value of200G is considered to be a maximumthreshold. Values of 200 Gmax and aboveare considered values at which life threaten-ing head injuries maybe expected to occur.”Project specifications may require a lowermaximum impact level. For example, manyexperts recommend Gmax values no higherthan 170 on fields where sports withouthelmets are played.

• Vo fps: impact velocity, velocity of themissile (in feet per second) as it impacts thesurface of the field. This is not a measure-ment of the turf, but an indicator ofwhether test was performed properly. If im-pact velocity is not acceptable our fieldtechnician will rerun tests at the test point.

• Tmax ms: time (milliseconds) to im-

pact maximum (Gmax). Used in calcula-tions for Head Injury Criterion.

Section 3: Statements regarding whetherGmax results are less than 200 and that re-port reflects condition of field. Signed byfield technician.

Section 4: Same as section 1. Basic in-formation regarding when and where thetest was performed, at the top of page 2.

Section 5: Test results from the individ-ual test drops at each test point.

• Test point location and individual testresults with the average (2nd and 3rddrops) are reported for Gmax and Vo fps(impact velocity).

• Drop height is 2 feet. This is the dis-tance that the test missile is dropped dur-ing the test procedure. ASTM F1936states: “The test method incorporated intothis specification (Procedure A of TestMethod F355), has been used to test theimpact attenuation of athletic fields forover 30 years. The development of this 2-ftfall-height method can be traced back tothe Ford and GM crash-dummy tests of


Facility&Operations

the 1960’s, medical research papers fromthe 1960’s and 1970’s, and a NorthwesternUniversity study in which an accelerometerwas fixed to the helmet of a middle line

backer to measure impacts received duringactual play. This study found the typicalhead-impact to be 40 ft/lb, which is equiva-lent to the impact generated by dropping a20 lb missile from a height of 2 feet, the re-quirement specified in Procedure A of TestMethod F 355.”

• Head Injury Criterion (HIC) is ameasure of the likelihood of head injuryarising from an impact. HIC is a measure-ment of impact severity based on publishedresearch describing the relationship betweenthe magnitude and duration of impact ac-celerations and the risk of head trauma. Atthe 2012 STMA Conference, Dr. AndyMcNitt of Pennsylvania State University in-dicated a near perfect correlation betweenGmax and HIC for sports fields (i.e. highGmax = high HIC; low Gmax = low HIC).HIC is used to assess safety related to vehi-cles, personal protective gear, and sportequipment. Because there is limited re-search regarding sports fields, data from theauto industry and others is used to provideinsight into injury risk. The higher the HIC

value, the greater the risk of injury (see Fig-ure 3 below).

Turf Diagnostics believes that the Gmaxvalues should be the key indicator of fieldhardness for the turf manager. Individualtest points with Gmax above 200 or aGmax average of greater than 170 for theentire field suggest that maintenance prac-tices, such as grooming and topdressing, arerequired.

We also believe that the field managershould pay particular attention to infilldepth. For consistency in play, infill depthshould be uniform over the entire field.Changes to infill depth over time shouldalso be noted. Infill depth tends to de-crease over time and should be replenishedas part of a synthetic turf maintenanceprogram. ■

Sam Ferro is the president of Turf Diagnos-tics & Design, which performs field hardnesstesting on fields throughout the US as well astesting of soils, sands, aggregates and amend-ments for natural and synthetic turf fields.

>> Turf Diagnostics technician measuring fieldtemperature and infill depth as part of a fieldevaluation.

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How do you mark your lines?