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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fields of streams


The Spokesman-ReviewWest Valley head softball Coach Paul Cooley drags the Eagles infield as the team removes puddles of water with buckets and shovels March 17. Players and their parents recently edged and prepared the dismond for the upcoming season.
 (J. BART RAYNIAK / The Spokesman-Review)
Steve Christilaw Correspondent

Diamonds are very high maintenance.

Baseball and softball fields, unlike any other high school playing field, are ultimately democratic operations. If a player wants to pick up a bat, they must first pick up a rake.

They are investment operations in a pay-to-play world. Payments are made in sweat equity.

“(Baseball and softball) are the only sports where you have to prepare your own field,” West Valley softball coach Paul Cooley said. “Can you imagine what it would be like if football players had to go out and groom their own field? You don’t ask basketball players to polish their own floor.”

Like most diamond-based coaches, Cooley puts in a great deal of time himself – at least an hour a day. When Mother Nature gets finicky, as she frequently does in the spring, that time can double or triple.

Additionally, Cooley’s team spends about 15 minutes before practice grooming the field – more if necessary. And considering teams have had to deal with rain, snow, sleet and hail in the first four weeks of the season, it’s often necessary.

“It’s pretty easy to get the kids to buy into the need to work on the field,” he said. “When you’re an infielder, it doesn’t take a lot to understand that getting rid of rocks and pebbles is a good idea. It can mean the difference between a good hop and a bad hop.”

Not that it’s all work and no play.

The Eagles’ picture day was Monday. After the team had its portrait taken, with everyone dressed in their black-and-orange uniforms, the team pitched in to help drain two substantial lakes that had formed on the infield after a wet weekend.

Before long, that effort evolved into mud games and much laughter.

At University, baseball coach Scott Sutherland looks at the job as an investment.

“We put in a lot of work on our field,” he said. “We have a great facility here and we want to make sure we keep it that way. The guys all feel that way. We have an improvement project here every season and we have a list of them for the next couple years at least.”

Last spring, the Titans invested an off-day to install colored slats into the outfield’s chain-link fence to provide a better background for hitters standing at home plate. The team also has installed an artificial-turf walkway from the dugout to home plate, the better to handle long-term wear and tear on that section of grass – especially during early season games when the grass is just beginning to awaken from a winter of dormancy.

Even without improvement projects, maintaining a playing field is an evolving task.

With softball fields, where the infield is all dirt, care must be taken to remove rocks and pebbles that constantly work their way to the surface.

Baseball fields must be groomed to a tonsorial T. Grass must be edged, smoothed and eventually mowed. Dirt picked over to remove rocks and pebbles. Mounds must be sculpted and groomed.

When it rains, players must pitch in to spread and rake products that help soak up standing water in addition to applying chalk outlines along the foul lines and around batters boxes on both sides of homeplate.

It’s not uncommon to see a player, dressed in his home uniform, mowing the infield before a home game.

The work really begins in the fall.

“We put in a lot of work in on the field in late fall,” West Valley baseball coach Don O’Neal said. “My assistant coaches and I do a lot of raking and dragging on the infield to get it ready for winter. When you do that, it makes for less work in the spring.”

And spring is no picnic, no matter how much work you do ahead of time. There’s a reason professional baseball teams head to Florida and Arizona to start workouts in February.

It’s not uncommon to find the field covered in a blanket of compact snow on the first day of practice. Most Spokane Valley teams began spring practice indoors this season.

Just getting the snow to melt is not enough to make the field ready for play.

“You’ve got a frost layer underneath the surface,” University softball coach Jon Schuh said. “You have to have enough warm days for that layer to melt before you can get the standing water to drain. We’re pretty lucky. Once we get through that frost layer, our field drains really well.”

Cooley has another challenge.

Smith Field, the Eagles’ home diamond, was recently tilled to help level out several low spots caused by standing water. That effort, however, brought up a layer of clay.

“You really can’t get water to drain through this clay,” he said. “You have to dig holes for the water to drain through. Our next project is to bring in a layer of topsoil and put it down.”