Grass is greener at the ballpark
The Mets erected a new fence in front of the old wall at Citi Field, lowering the height needed for a home run to 8 feet from as much as 16 and cutting the distance from home plate by up to 12 feet. (April 3, 2012) Credit: AP
The lush green outfield grass likely will be the first thing Mets fans see on Opening Day at Citi Field this afternoon, one of the many visual reminders that the baseball season is back.
But how is it that the Citi Field grass looks as if it's the middle of summer at a time of the calendar year when Long Island homeowners perhaps haven't even mowed their own lawns yet?
According to the Mets' head groundskeeper, their green grass is a credit to three things: a late fall fertilization, an unseasonably warm winter and a staff of workers that few homeowners could afford. The result is a lawn any homeowner would dream of, let alone just days into April.
"Normally we're trying to cram six weeks' worth of work into two weeks," groundskeeper Bill Deacon said. "This year we've been able to take the whole month of March and work on the field."
Deacon, who's entering his seventh season with the Mets, previously worked as the Long Island Ducks' head groundskeeper during their first two years of existence, giving the West Coast native some insight into Northeast winters. So he knows he got off easy this winter. He estimated that his staff already has mowed the Citi Field grass more than a dozen times, a testament to the warmer-than-normal winter weather.
Over at Yankee Stadium, the unseasonably warm weather meant the grounds crew didn't have to replace the outfield lawn, even though the stadium hosted a college football bowl game in late December. Instead, the unseasonable warmth allowed them to simply let the grass grow back on its own.
"We'd always rather keep the grass that was there in, because the roots grow deeper and it's just likely to stand up better for the entire season," said Frank Rossi, a Cornell professor who has served as a consultant to the Yankees' grounds crew for the last two decades.
It also helps the Mets and Yankees that their lawns are built on sand-based structures, Rossi said. While that's primarily to allow the entire field to drain quickly to limit rain delays and postponements, he said the sand base also thaws much quicker than your average lawn after a winter ground freeze.
So the lawns at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium already are going to be in position to start growing quicker than your typical backyard grass. That's why Deacon's crew started mowing the outfield grass at Citi Field during the first week of March, a month before most Long Islanders.
The final preparation for Opening Day included another mow Wednesday as well as an application of liquid fertilizer, which Deacon said they've been applying about every 10 days. Then one more mow this morning and the grass is officially ready to begin the six-month grind of a baseball season.
"It's also nice to have a day game on Opening Day," he said. "The grass always looks better during the day."
