Gonzaga adds turf playing surface, padded outfield wall to baseball complex

Spokane is familiar with the feeling of waking up on a fresh mid-March morning only to find a new band of weather dropped its fluffy snow throughout the city, requiring another full-city plow.

That type of snow would cancel Gonzaga baseball games and force the players indoors to work on their craft.

The yearlong weather in Spokane that causes havoc on the paved streets is also harsh on natural grass surfaces.

Good surfaces require constant maintenance, and the former grass surface at Steve Hertz Field was considered as such.

But even the best retire. In 2016, when Gonzaga was playing in a regional at TCU, the team wondered what the Patterson Baseball Complex could become with an artificial turf surface.

Money was available for the project in 2020 before the pandemic hit, so two years passed before it began.

The delay gave the university and the team a couple of years to hone in on what they envisioned the final product to be.

Last fall, excavators began the project by scraping and discarding the grass and the clay under it to make way for the new turf and sand that has helped replicate a true natural surface.

Baseball traditionalists might disagree, but the change was necessary for the Bulldogs to continue to develop their program and recruit the top players from across the country.

“Our coaches are kind of purists when it comes to playing on grass,” GU director of athletic facilities Rob Kavon said. “They say baseball should be played on grass, and that’s kind of how it should be, but it’s not only the access to the field, but just the consistent playability. You don’t get bad hops. It’s all in uniform.”

Zags senior shortstop Connor Coballes, the West Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2022, has plenty of experience on turf as a majority of the country is shifting that way. He said the turf at GU has led to cleaner, more reliable hops on ground balls.

While the coaches and players loved the natural field, they knew the change was needed.

“It’s strictly a functionality standpoint,” GU assistant coach Brandon Harmon said. “The romantic part of having the natural field was great, and it was awesome on game days. Not having to worry about what kind of condition the field was in or what we could or couldn’t do, because of the time of year. So just from a development standpoint and getting our guys out on the field for more days, it’s pretty night and day.”

The project also added a 12-foot wall in left field – up from 8 feet – and padding to the outfield walls for player safety and additional marketing opportunities.

“I think the padded wall was an underrated addition,” Harmon said. “I think it just encloses everything. It looks beautiful, gives us a chance to put some branding out in the outfield, and kind of highlight what some of those past teams have been able to do.”

Short fences down the left- and right-field foul lines were inserted to enhance the stadium-like feel to the experience for the players and spectators.

“When we go to the bigger places and play Tennessee or Texas Tech, they obviously have turf too, but they also have the padded walls and it looks really smooth, really clean,” Coballes said.

The change pushed the bullpens, which used to be on the playing surface, to the outside of the fences.

The berms that had been a staple of the facility were razed and the area will be available to add bleacher seating, if needed, for hosting regionals in the future.

Also down the right-field line is a new performance facility that will be connected to the clubhouse via tunnels.

The facility will house indoor mounds and cages, with outdoor mounds on the backside of the building.

The multimillion-dollar field and facility project was funded through private donors.

“That’s going to be the piece that we’re selling huge on the recruiting standpoint,” Harmon said. “And obviously, we’ve been able to develop players in the landscape that we have now, but this is going to, I think, take us to the next level, not only in attracting players but also just enhancing what we can do with them.”

From the players’ perspective, they have had to share indoor practice time with club and high school teams from around the city, so they had to be selective on when they would get work in.

“Having that space that’s ours will be special and it’ll be huge for the program,” Coballes said.

One item slashed from the final proposal was a heating system under the field that could melt the snow in the winter months. One college baseball field in the country with one, according to Harmon and Kavon, is at BYU. It can melt 3-4 inches of snow an hour.

“We went down the whole process of getting it done and what it would take, and it would have been a great thing to have,” Kavon said. “Financially, it just didn’t pencil out. It was really, really cost-prohibitive.”

Still, having the turf allows for more practice time and decreases the time spent on maintaining a natural surface.

In the past, the university and the players were both responsible for upkeep.

Before practice, the players would drag the dirt and place mats out for batting practice. The process was reversed after practice. Younger players were the major beneficiaries, but the team now has more time to focus on baseball.

“A lot of us use that time to actually get extra work in now, which is nice,” Coballes said. “If a couple guys want to go out there, they don’t have to worry about setting up the field. You can just go out there and get your work done before or after practice. It also pushes (the young guys) to do a little extra work, seeing us older guys out there.”

One of the turf’s first major tests came two weeks ago as the Bulldogs were slated to play UC Irvine for a three-game series.

Friday morning surprised the Zags with 5 inches of snow and a postponement of the game.

But with the new field, it allowed them to clear it Friday and play a game Saturday and another Sunday.

Harmon and Coballes said that wouldn’t be possible in years past. The field wouldn’t have recovered in time for players’ safety or without destroying the field.

“There’s more coming here in the next two or three years that are going to be exciting. And give our people here in Spokane a chance to come out and support us, which is huge,” Harmon said. “We’ve had a pretty good track record of playing in Spokane, and I think that’s only going to add to it.”

Coballes, a Spokane native and former Gonzaga Prep product, has been a Zags fan his entire life. He has seen this program grow over the years, but with this next phase the program could be set to make more national noise.

“Seeing all the upgrades come into play finally is really special to see, not just as a Zag but as a fan and as a part of the community,” Coballes said. “I think it’s really special to see the more professional feel that we have at Gonzaga with the baseball program.”