FALLS CHURCH KIWANIS LITTLE LEAGUE

Field Maintenance

Field maintenance depends primarily on our volunteers and coaches, for which we are exceedingly thankful.

However, given the age of our fields, and a history of poorly maintaining these fields has resulted in a host of challenges:

1) Significant infield "lips" where the infield and grass merge. These lips accumulate rapidly when volunteers inadvertently drag the infield mix into the grass. The lips present a significant safety issue as balls hit these lips and pop-up directly into the face of players.

Examples of infield lips shown above.

To minimize infield lips, please take the following steps:

Do NOT drag the infield within a foot of the grass edges. This is the most important action you can take.
Instead, use the field rake to pull the infield mix back toward the field.
For fields with garden rakes or brooms available (i.e., Idylwood, Westgate), please quickly rake or brush the infield mix from the grass back onto the field.

2) Migration of infield mix toward the outfield. Less a safety concern as compared to infield lips, this is does result in outfield lips, but also results in costly repairs as we need to bring infield mix on a regular basis.

To minimize outfield lips and migrating mix, please take the following steps:

Do NOT drag the infield within a foot of the grass edges. This is the most important action you can take.
Use field rakes to pull the mix, which gets very thick toward the back of the infield, towards the middle of the infield.
Level the field as best you can. Idlywood and Westgate have wide field-leveling tools, which are very helpful to pull and level the mix.

3) Base path lips. These lips are formed along the base paths and result from perpendicular raking of the base paths with the field rakes. Further, such raking results in low spots, which accululates water.

To minimize basepath lips, please take the following steps:

Do NOT rake perpendicular to the base paths.
Only rake in a parallel direction to the base paths.
Occassionally use a garden rake or broom to pull infield mix from the grass areas back onto the base path.

Best Practice Method for Field Maintenance