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Maintain the pitcher's mound
Maintaining
Your Baseball Field Mound |
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Maintain
the pitcher area properly to reduce injury. |
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What
you're going to do The
pitcher’s area takes a beating in games and practice.
I think a lot of coaches in little league and PONY league never pitched
or they wouldn't possibly expect their players to use such bad mounds.
It is critical to maintain the pitcher area properly to reduce the potential
for injury. So, fix it. Maintain it.
How you
do this
- Sweep or rake the
loose material from the landing area and top of the mound. This allows
the hard ground to be exposed. The landing area is the place where the
pitcher land with his lead foot.
- Lightly moisten
the exposed hard ground and the loose material to ensure the dirt will
bind when packed back in the holes. Let it set and absorb for few minutes
if you can.
- Rake the loose,
but moistened, material back in the holes.
- Tamp this loose
dirt into the ground. Use a tamp or the smooth back of a field rake.
- Rake down the
newly repaired areas as well as the rest of the mound.
- Water the entire
pitcher’s area.
- Once the pitcher’s
mound is completely prepared for the game, you can cover it with a tarp
to maintain a proper moisture level.
Tips &
Hints
- In some cases,
clay bricks are used to establish a firm
throwing area. These moist clay bricks are a very acceptable
material because they have not been hardened by heat,
like bricks used in construction.
- Bags of powdered
mortar clay work also. Remove about 3 inches of dirt in the posting
and landing area of the mound. Moisten the ground. Dump some powdered
clay in. Let it set a minute to absorb the water. Rake it around. Repeat
moistening, adding powdered clay, raking it in, until the level is almost
back to normal. Cover with the baseball dirt that was removed. Tamp
it in.
- Turface, a calcined
clay product, makes a great top dressing for the mound. A high school
size mound requires two bags for adequate coverage. The turface helps
prevent slipping in damp weather and gives the mound a nice, professional,
finishing touch.
- Make sure your
pitcher's rubber is level, in the proper position, and is really the
right distance from home plate and the proper height. Measure distance
from the back point of the plate to the front of the pitching rubber.
The proper little league distance is 46 feet. The proper high school
and college distance is 60 feet 6 inches.
- Take care of your
bullpens too. They are often ignored.
Mistakes
to avoid
- Ignore mound care.
The biggest mistake. It seems to be common when a field is shared by
many teams and leagues.
- Not providing access
to the tools and hose to take care of the mound.
- Just fill in the
landing holes with dry dirt. That doesn't help. Unless... your sprinklers
totally soak the dirt area at night for at least 20 minutes and then
you have hot, sunny weather the next day to bake and harden the dirt.
Otherwise, just filling the holes with dry dirt is worthless. No pitcher
wants to have that. It provides no good footing at all.
- Not having a table
top to your mound. A mound is not supposed to look like a bump or a
hill on the field. It needs a large flat area at the top and then gradual
sloping to the grass. Otherwise the thing is actually dangerous for
a pitcher. For example, a high school size mound should have a top that
is 3 feet by 5 feet and level.
- Mound height is
wrong. Next to the wrong distance from homeplate to second base, this
is the most common mistake. Many mounds are not the right height. I
worked on a little league field where the mound was 8 inches too high
and a college field where the mound was 2 inches too low. Fix these.
The players will have a better baseball experience and one that is more
consistent. Wrong
mound height or distance from homeplate is one of the most common mistakes
on the field.
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give your pitchers
good footing
A horrible
PONY
league mound
Same mound
after
it's rebuilt
covered to manage
moisture content
Calcine clay product
topdressing
helps
maintain moisture and
a professional finish
maintain
the proper
distance, height,
and level
the bullpen - ignored
you're kidding...you
expect me to warm
up on this?
now that's a bullpen! |
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