Marking
your baseball field
turf cutouts for edging
Start
by finding
the right baseball field diagram for marking grass cutouts and edging
your field.
The basepath
width and the corner cutouts are different between little league and highschool.
Find the right one for you.
Be prepared
for some surprises when you mark your baseball field to spec. Mark
your sprinklers so you don't hit them when edging.
You might
find that some sprinklers are outside the cut out. And you might
find that some of your corner cutouts are not even close to the proper
arc.
It's
OK of modify the arc to match your field and make a nice clean cut out.
Some fields use arcs and some use squared off indents. Be creative
if needed.
Tools
needed to mark your baseball turf for edging:
- hammer
- to drive the nail or screw driver in the ground that is hard
- large
nails or screw drivers - I like to use the screw drivers since I can
use them to dig and find the base pegs also
- line
or stringer - wrapped around the nail on each end for a nice tight straight
line
- spray
paint - I like stripping paint since I can paint a thin line with it
- tape
measure - base paths vary from 2-6 feet wide; corner arcs vary from
6-9 feet; mound radius varies from 5-9 feet.
Marking the corner
arc at 1B and 3B: anchor the string at the back corner at the foul line.
DO NOT anchor at the base peg. The entire base should be in fair
territory.
If your pegs are positioned
right, then the back of the base is 60 feet from the back point of home
plate on a little league field... and 90 feet from the back point of home
plate on a high school field.
Marking the arc at
2B: anchor the string at the base peg. If this peg is placed correctly,
it is 60 feet from the center of 2B to each of the foul lines. One
of the most common mistakes is to put 2B totally inside the 60 feet
square. Read 90 foot on a high school field.
Marking at home plate:
Mark from the back point of home plate.
Marking the 1B and
3B base path edges: first, the foul lines should be in the middle of the
base path. So, on a little league field you measure two feet to
either side of the foul line for drawing out the base path. On a high
school field measure three feet to either side for a six foot wide base
path.
Marking the infield
edges to 2B: measure in 2 to 3 feet (depending on little league or high
school) to get the spec cut for the infield grass. Don't be surprised
if you find it varies by more than a foot on older fields. Work
with what you have and make a straight line that fits your field.
I'd say half the fields I work on vary this much. It's OK.
You can still make it look and play sharp
Drawing the grass
cutouts and edging stripe: I try to mark all my grass cutouts lines on
the dirt side of the string. Then I know to cut off all the white
spray paint when I edge.
Alternative1: if you
are using a power edger you can use part of the machine as a guide and
walk it along the string without cutting it. You might have to move
the string in an inch or so to do this. Just use part of the machine
as a guide that is an inch to the left of the cutting blade.
Alternative 2: after
you get the string in place, spray weed killer, on the grass past the
string. It will die, shrivel up, and can easily be hula hoed off.
This option works if you don't have much time for labor and can wait 2-3
weeks before you have a nice edge. I do this in the fall so by spring,
the edge doesn't need much work. I can measure and place nails and
screw drivers around the perimeter and string the whole thing at once.
Then just walk around the perimeter and spray. Easy.
Current grass cutouts
not to spec? What do you do? You can either cut it to spec or vary your
cut to match what you have. You still get a nice edge. If
you have quite a difference between the current edge and spec, you can
also add
top soil and plant some grass or you can plant
sod right there.
In this example, we
used a flat shovel to cut and edge the turf. This field is not so
bad this spring. Last
year it was so far from spec with bad lips that we used a sod cutter to
cut the baseball field grass edge.
Now it is easier to edge with simple tools like a flat shovel.

A sod cutter
is a good tool when the edge
for grass cutouts is so far from spec.

Good edges a year later.
Use simple tools - flat shovel or lawn edger.
Do not use a sod cutter again.
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