How to correct dirt mix on your baseball field after you analyzed it

Correct Your Baseball Dirt Mix

Need to Correct Dirt Mix
on Your Baseball Field?

Make your infield consistent throughout the entire game.
Proper mix helps prevent rainouts and help maintain a proper moisture level in your field.

What you're going to do

Add infield mix to get closer to the right mixture for a safe and playable field.

Why you do this

Most baseball fields benefit from extra dirt every year or so. It just seems to blow away or get washed away eventually. Adding the correct dirt mix also helps keep the entire infield area level.

How you do this

Order a truck load of dirt material based on the prior analysis.
Have it dumped on the dirt area if possible. Lightly water your existing infield mix.
Then spread the new dirt with a tractor or field rakes.
Fill in the obvious low spots you typically find at first base and home plate. Second base usually is a little high on most fields, but if it needs more dirt, put it on.
Water the dirt lightly to hold down the dust..
Drag with the usual infield drag.
Roll if you added more than 2 inches of material to help speed up settling.
Water the dirt as you would before a game.
Drag again.

bucket & tiller tractor

spreading wth a bobcat

Tips & Hints

If you are adding a lot of new material that didn't exist in the current field, then you should till it in with a tractor tiller, drag it, and roll it. For example, if your field is very low on clay, you might add a truck load (10 tons), till in into the top 4 inches, drag it, and roll it. See example.
Sand helps with drainage and helps if bounces are too hard and high.
Clay helps with a firm footing and helps if the dirt area is too loose and bounces die.
Combining clay and sand usually gets the right combination for drainage, good footing, and the right bounces.
Fines (also known as DG or decomposed granite) is usually granite rock crushed fine. It might look good, but it does not really help with footing, drainage, or bounces. It is cheap, so many parks use it. It does work to fill in low spots, but for competitive play you don't want DG on the field. The correct dirt mix needs to include some clay.
Crushed red brick is also popular if it is mixed in with clay and sand to give it the 'red' baseball infield look. A 50-50 mix of red brick and tan DG is also sometimes used for warning tracks.
This area of field maintenance a frequent topic. See more info about fixing your field so it has the correct dirt mix in this FAQ topic.

Mistakes to avoid

Some infields are made totally of DG, fines, or crushed brick. Walk on one of these after a game on a warm day. It will be like walking on flour dust and you'll be swimming in it. Don't put this on the field. The correct dirt mix is made of clay, silt, and sand.