The Turf Speech
Posted: January 15th, 2010 | Filed under: Media | 44 Comments »
You may or may not have interest in this, but here is the rough version of the speech I gave Thursday to the Sports Turf Management people here in Orlando. They were very nice, very encouraging, and coming down here gives us a chance to take our girls to Disney World. More on that later.
One quick Disney World story. We took the girls to Disney World three or four years ago. And back then, the Disney Princesses were about the most popular thing in the park. So we’re sitting there waiting for Belle (from Beauty and the Beast).
Me (to Margo): “I wonder if the Princesses are as hot as they were four years ago.”
Stranger: “I think they are still very pretty.”
Me: “Um, that’s not what I meant. I meant hot like, um, popular.”
Stranger: “Oh. Sure you did.”
Well, as you know if you have read the schedule, this little talk is supposed to be a sportswriter’s perspective of the evolution of sports surfaces. But of course, I know almost nothing at all about the subject. I suspect that the evolution of sports surfaces is a topic that everyone in this room knows much more about than I do. So, I hope you will forgive me if this talk wanders off topic from time to time.
I did not intend to become a sportswriter. I went to school to become an accountant. I still remember the day when I realized that my life was going to go in a different direction. I was taking the city bus home from school, and I remember we were going past a business park. I was looking out the window at all of these people carrying briefcases and satchels, and they were all in their business suits, and it hit me that I would never become an accountant. I would never live that life. Coincidentally, that was the day I had failed out of accounting. So it all worked out.
I did not know what I wanted to do. But I loved sports. I suspect that many people in this room got into this profession for the same reason. I loved everything about sports – but I especially loved the little things. I grew up in Cleveland, and I grew up going to watch baseball games at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which had the reputation as the most beautiful park in all of baseball. Or maybe it was the opposite. I can never remember. I always get that confused, because I would read in various places that the Cleveland infield was so bumpy there were obviously bodies buried in it. Thing is, I remember the grass being emerald green and the infield being smooth as ice cream. And nobody could ever tell me different. I fell in love with the field before I fell in love with baseball. You don’t hear people say it that way very often, maybe. But I think most kids are like that.
That’s because a loved field can make be magical. I know people in this room have seen it. I remember, a few years ago, I went with Tony Pena to the Dominican Republic. You remember Tony Pena. He was a very good catcher in the big leagues and this very enthusiastic manager who would try to inspire his players by doing things like jumping in the shower with his clothes on. I was never entirely sure how that was supposed to work, and it often did not work. But he’s a wonderful guy, and a titanic hero in the Dominican Republic.
As you no doubt have read or seen, they play baseball in every open space in the Dominican Republic. It’s true. We saw kids playing on fields harder than parking lots. We saw them playing on little patches of ground between houses. In a town near where Juan Marichal was born, we saw kids playing baseball on this dust field while using a metal pipe for a bat and a taped up rock for a ball.
And then Tony took us to this field he had built, one he paid to keep maintained. It was beautiful. Smelled of fresh cut grass. The infield dirt had been smoothed over – no rocks anywhere, no bumps in the dirt. It would have been a nice field anywhere, but there, in the Dominican Republic, it might as well have been Dodger Stadium. And you could see the joy on the kids faces, it was a different kind of joy from the way the other kids has been playing baseball. I remember one of the children said, through translation, “On this field, I feel I can do anything.” Of course it was Tony Pena doing the translation, so I could not vouch for its authenticity. He might have said anything. But it did seem that way.
Closer to home for me, in my hometown of Kansas City, we have a field called “Satchel Paige Field.” It was named after Satchel Paige, probably the greatest pitcher in the Negro Leagues in those days when Major League baseball was segregated. He may have been the greatest pitcher of all time, we’ll never know. You have no doubt heard Satchel Paige stories – like the times he would tell everyone in the infield and outfield to leave the field, so he could deal with the hitter one-on-one as God intended. You may know that Satchel used to warm up by pitching over a stick of chewing gum. Lengthwise.
Well, Satchel Paige lived his post-pitching life in Kansas City. And there is this Satchel Paige Field in Kansas City, which should have been a great place. For a long time, I have to tell you, it was awful. Broken glass. The outfield was weeds. The infield was hard as stone. The field was supposed to be a place for kids in the RBI program – Reviving Baseball in the Inner City – to play, but the man who ran RBI simply refused to put the kids on the field. To be honest, he was ashamed of the field; the whole city was. It seemed disgraceful to put Satchel Paige’s name on it.
And then, Royals groundskeeper Trevor Vance – I don’t know if Trevor is here – and his crew and a bunch of people in town decided to fix the field. They cleared off the glass and trash and nails and whatever else they found. They put in a new irrigation system. They worked and reworked the infield. They pounded a mound. All of you would know better than me how difficult it was to bring that field to life. What I know as a sportswriter is that after a long time and a lot of hard work, that field was beautiful. And I remember how much it meant to this kids to play baseball on it. On that field, they felt like they could do anything.
I suppose in my life as a sportswriter, I have seen surfaces evolve a great deal. It starts for me with that surface was at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, whatever that was. The Cleveland Indians and Browns both used to play there, and it was always of great strategic importance in football whether the offense was going toward the open end or the closed end of the stadium. If you were going toward the open end, field goals would have to pierce through the wind. But if you were going toward the closed end, then you would probably have to kick off the Indians infield, which was a bit like kicking a football out of quicksand. You were mostly dead either way. Man, I miss that place.
Astroturf was a big part of my childhood, of course. I love hearing stories about Astroturf. I’ll tell you something that I think will register with many of you here … I became a columnist in Kansas City in late 1996, after the season ended. I came to spring training in 1997, and my first day there I ran into a guy you might know – George Toma. The legend. He put his arm around me, we went across the street to the Perkins and talked for hours. He told me some great Kansas City turf stories.
My favorite turf stories involve Big John Mayberry. You probably know that there was no place on earth hotter than the artificial turf in Kansas City in July. Guys cleats would melt. On Sunday afternoon games the players would – no joke – they would have buckets of ice water in the dugout and they would stand in those buckets with their shoes on between innings.
Well, the Royals had a pitcher named Al Fitzmorris, a great guy and a surprisingly effective pitcher, surprising because as he would tell you he did not exactly have the best stuff in the world. “I had nothing,” he often says. And as you probably know if you’re around baseball a lot, pitchers who do not have great stuff often work very slow. It’s like Al says, “Hey, if you throw as soft as I did, you wouldn’t want to pitch either.” So they were playing a Sunday game, and it was 110 or 120 degrees on the field, and Al was pitching, and he was pitching slow. And every few seconds, he would hear Big John Mayberry at first base shouting, “Speed it up.” “Pick it up.” “Let’s go.”
Finally, during the game, Big John walked over to the mound to talk to Al Fitzmorris. And you know that the guy in the radio booth was saying, “Well, Big John is going to settle down Fitzmorris.” But, in truth, John took the baseball from him and said, “If you don’t speed it up, I am going to kill you. I am not kidding. I will really kill you.” Fitzmorris sped up.
One of the interesting things to me about the surface field is how it can affect the way a team plays. Football teams play so much faster on turf. The Kurt Warner Rams playing in that dome were probably were probably the fastest team I ever saw. The Minnesota Vikings are a bit like that now in their dome. I remember someone – it might have been Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt – saying that sooner or later, dome teams have to go outside. But that isn’t necessarily true, certainly not in football. The best teams this year – the Colts, the Saints, the Vikings, the Cowboys, the Cardinals – all play in domes. We probably won’t have another playoff game this year in bad weather. It could mean good games, but I’m like most other people. I like a good snow game in the playoffs.
Baseball teams play faster too. The Kansas City Royals went away replaced the artificial turf with grass before the 1995 season. And the grass makes the place look absolutely beautiful – there’s no comparison. But, of course, the Royals have not won a thing since the turf was taken out. The turf may have been miserable to play on, but Kansas City identity was wrapped up in the turf. I wonder if that will happen in Minnesota. The new stadium looks absolutely beautiful, and I have no doubt the grass field will be a thousand times better than the Metrodome. But it is also true that the Twins didn’t lose much in the Metrodome.
I love to come out early to games and watch the field get watered down, the lines get drawn, the grass get mowed, the turf get cleaned (or whatever it is you do for turf). I still love the little things … I think I learned some of that from Buck O’Neil. I’ll tell you a Buck story if you will allow me … I traveled around the country with Buck for a book that I wrote called “The Soul of Baseball.” And it was the best professional experience of my life, without a doubt. Buck was 93 and 94 years old then, and he was so full of life, so energetic, most days it was hard to keep up with him.
And then, one day in New York, I saw him slow down. It was a long day, full of interviews and appearances, and by the end of it he was just exhausted. I remember him telling me that he wasn’t even going to dinner, he was too tired. He was going head back to his room and get some sleep. It was very unlike him. But, I understood.
As we were walking to the hotel, I saw this woman. She was wearing a red dress. It wasn’t just a normal red dress – this was a Marilyn Monroe red dress. You could see if from Brooklyn. And as we went inside, I turned to Buck to ask him if he had seen the woman …
… and Buck was gone.
I mean he was gone. I looked all around. I looked to see if there was a bathroom nearby. I looked to see if he had stayed in the car – but the car was gone. And then I looked outside and saw Buck talking to the woman in the red dress. Buck was talking, and she was laughing, then she was talking and Buck was laughing, they were hugging, and then this guy came over, and he was talking, they were all laughing, they were all hugging, it was really something.
After about 10 minutes or so, Buck walked into the hotel looking fresh as morning. He said, “Well, let’s go get something to eat.”
As we walked toward the restaurant, Buck suddenly stopped. And he looked at me. And he said, “Did you see that woman with the red dress?”
“Yeah Buck, I saw her.”
And then he shook his head and with the teacher’s sternness he said: “Son, in this life, you don’t ever walk by a red dress.”
I guess that’s the big lesson I take from Buck. Whatever your red dress is – whatever opportunities are out there for you – don’t walk by. And don’t miss out.
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Great speech Joe!
This makes me wish I was in turf management.
I grokked your origins story, Joe.
I was going to be an engineer — until I nearly flunked physics my junior year of high school. I realized then that I had hit the wall in math and had better find something that played to my strengths. Well, I was a good writer and I loved watching sports (couldn’t play them worth a damn), so I became a sportswriter. Did that for 5 years before the late nights and weekends wore me down, so I switched to editorial writing, which has worked out pretty well for 17 years now.
Circle me George Toma!
Simply awesome.
Here’s a link for The Soul of Baseball on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/yz4qch8
San Diego’s a pretty good team in the NFL playoffs that doesn’t play in a dome, right? Oh wait, they’re in San Diego.
SK/#3 – sweet screen name. Makes me wish I’d picked a cooler album.
Joe, this is a fantastic speech. Great idea, great execution. This is why we all keep coming back.
Great speech, loved the stories but I still can’t over the idea that you gave a speech about Turf. How did the organizers even come up with the idea to spice up their meeting with entertaining and poignant stories about turf? They truly think out of the box and you likewise rose to the meet the challenge.
A municipal stadium story: I grew up going to the Vet in Philadelphia, starting from when it was nice and modern. As a kid I had never seen a major league game on grass. Fast forward to college in Cleveland: its a sunny April day, Blyleven is pitching, we decide to take off and catch the game. The stadium by that point was an old, depressing, often empty dump. But that day I got to walk through the concourse, go into the stands, and gaze out on that first glimpse of a grass field in the sun with bright white chalk lines and real dirt.
I’ll always remember that first view. It proves that any grass baseball field is better than a turf one.
I still remember Sunday afternoon games at Royals Stadium during the turf years. The heat radiating off the field was so intense, Frank White was just a blurry image. They had that painted arc to distinguish between the infield & outfield. Frank seemed to play well past that line – almost in a rover position.
I sense a challenge coming on. Pick speech topics that Joe has little business covering and watch him work his magic.
My topic: annual conference of ‘direct line’ telecommunications. The guys that design and sell the phones that connect you automatically somewhere when you pick them up. Taxi stands and bullpens are the two examples that jump to mind.
“Taxi stands and bullpens are the two examples that jump to mind.”
I always imagined the White-House-to-Kremlin “Hot Line” working that way. At least I hope it did. Of course, there were still those times when you had to connect through Omsk Information.
My sports turf story – when I was a kid, I played soccer every chance I could get and was an avid fan of teh Vancouver 86ers, a Canadian Soccer League team. At that point in time, half of the Canadian Mens National Team was on the team, so they were my heroes. And after every home game, kids could come onto the field and players would sign autographs. But my memory is of just how NICE that field was – perfectly flat, beautifully green. I wanted to play on that field. I still want to play on that field.
Circle me Roger Bossert
Great speech Joe, hit the heart of the matter, methinks. #13, Chris I’m 45, live in New Mexico and if I was invited to participate in a pick up game at the K tomorrow, I’d drive all night to be there.
Great speech Joe. I’ve written and given a few speeches, and you did a really nice job here. I’m certain the listeners were entertained, which was clearly your role at the event.
Too bad it wasn’t in Tampa, as I was there this week….and it’s warmer there than back here in MN.*
*just thought I’d give you some surprising news, like McGwire did….
Great speech; on the origins story – it, too, is great. There is no shame in failing but one should take it for the message that it is. You probably could have kept banging your head on the stone and become an accountant. But you’d have been miserable and probably wouldn’t have been very good.
I see too many kids that think they can’t fail, that failing at something is shameful and I can’t help but think that by being proud they’re missing their true calling.
Anyway, if any of you know a kid who is failing at something, advise them to go find something they love to do.
Similar story to #9. Grew up going to Three Rivers Stadium. In high school I road-tripped to Baltimore to see the Red Sox and Orioles at Memorial Stadium. By that age I had probably seen over a hundred live big-league games, but seeing one on natural grass was like going to my first game ever.
Just remember being ridiculously mesmerized by the sight of the grounds crew laying down the chalk and raking the dirt. Like, wow, they do that every night?
[...] Posted in inspiration, sports by arcanedufresne on January 15, 2010 This is an excerpt from Joe Posnanski’s blog post today. As usual, I love finding inspiration and I love finding ways to positively influence others around [...]
JP,
Wow, you captured so much here…5 years old, my first ball game was at KC Muni in 1964. Blistering summer day. By this time of year, most unwatered grass in the city is a gorgeous camel brown. I will never forget walking in the first base side and there, before me, is this emerald green oasis of perfectly manicured grass contrasted by the smooth brown dirt. The field is still a big part of the experience to me and as I coach today and have the opporortunity to prep the field on occassion, it is a fun task that I do with the anticipation of how it all will look before the team’s take the field.
Never in a million years did I ever think I’d seek out and read a speech given at an industry trade conference – regardless of the industry – let alone be captivated by it.
W. P. Kinsella wrote a beautiful short story about turf. While the home team was away on a long road trip, some guys snuck into the stadium and replaced the artificial turf with the real stuff. The description of the players’ reactions when they got home is the heart of the story. My memory says that the field in question was the old Metropolitan Stadium (the Twins’ first home), but my son says it was Kansas City. Whatever, it’s a good turf story.
Billy Crystal, in City Slickers, tells of being taken to Yankee Stadium as a boy and walking up the steps to be overwhelmed by the emerald greenness of the field. Sounded like a personal story.
My own field of dreams story concerns Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand, venue of the first Rugby World Cup and the site of the 2011 final.
As a boy I was on some handy rugby teams and got to play three times on the ground in curtain raisers to inter-provincial matches (in those days one step down from international matches). Mostly I remember how much bigger the ground was, so wide that the ball never seemed to go out of play and give us a breather. It’s half a century ago now, but I remember lifting my game because of the surroundings – and having to as everyone else seemed to be playing above themselves. The whole pace of the game changed.
I also remember coming back to the changing rooms (clean benches and real lockers) to find the officials had provided a couple of crates of soft drinks (soda pop?).
Wow! The guys who played here regularly lived in a different world.
There are fields like those tough ones you describe in the DR everywhere. I grew up in NY and we would play on concrete fields. No sliding, obviously, and the ball would take some wicked bounces, but we loved it anyway.
I gotta say, too, that princesses story was worth the price of admittance on its own. “Stranger” is pure genius.
Emil Bossard was groundskeeper in Cleveland. The Sodfather. See neat article
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1014069/index.htm if you are interested.
I bought a piece of the Royals stadium turf when it was replaced by grass. it’s still warm to the touch.
Wow, Joe…you’d really miss Royals FanFest to go speak at the Sports Turf Management Convention??
Wait…let me do a little T-Graph…
Kentucky Bluegrass — Powder Blue Hats
Soil pH catalysts — Lack of OBP analysis
George Toma — Alberto Callaspo
Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort & Convention Center in Lake Buena Vista — The Overland Park Convention Center in Overland Park
Disney Princesses in pink cross-strapped gowns — JoCo Princesses in graphite crossover SUVs
Joe Posnsnaki talking about the magic of sports — Dayton Moore talking about the magic of Yunieski Betancourt’s glove
Yeesh…you made out like a bandit.
@ Bellwether # 27:
I think what you mean is:
Great Googily Moogily
Thanks Joe. Keep it up.
Off topic, but the man version of the Snuggie:
http://pictureisunrelated.com/2010/01/05/snuggies-are-for-girls-mankets-are-for-guys/
Moved from the Ozarks to near Green Bay in the middle 1960s. All my young life had heard sports from the radio, and a rare television game.
My dad “scored” some rare tickets for a Packers Steelers pre-season game. At that time Lambeau Field did not allow a view of the field until you entered the seating area.
Can you imagine stepping through the walkway to view for the first time? The colors and sounds were so stunning, but I remember the gorgeous green field the most.
From that magical moment till now, I never ever ever can simply take my seat at any major sporting event. I could watch them prep the K for hours if allowed.
Great speech Joe!
If the Air Force JAG Corps invites you to speak in Orlando this October please say yes!
Great turf stories
Comerica Park has a very well-kept, beautifully green field. Now that I live in Wisconsin, where the Miller Park grass is notoriously dead in large patches, I appreciate the greenness of Comerica all the more.
Last May, I got to attend a Cubs game. The first view of Wrigley and the ivy spread out before me was truly breathtaking.
In hindsight, Cleveland was such a Browns town throughout the last thirty years of the Muni that I’m shocked they even allowed an infield cutout at all, lest they slow down Bernie Kosar even more than God did.
Cleveland could have been the only team to play on an all-grass field and Willie Upshaw could have won a Gold Glove…
Good stuff. I still love the dual purpose grass stadiums that have the infield dirt in the football field.
I saw highlights from on old game over the weekend I really hate old AstroTurf. That stuff is awful. Dome games would give me a headache when I was a kid. It just seemed wrong to play indoors on that awful turf.
I still laugh when I think about the comment you made about Cleveland Municipal Stadium a couple of years ago.
“…an infield that had more bad hops than Schlitz.”
Joe, I appreciated your childhood memories of Cleveland Municipal Stadium, never known as a cathedral. My childhood was spent watching the Giants play at Candlestick Park, which of course was likewise unloved by the world at large. At the time, in the mid-70s, it had terrible articificial turf, stained and ugly and ragged, probably about as bad as Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. But in, I think, 1979, they switched to real grass. I remember walking into the stadium early for batting practice on Opening Day and seeing the deep green grass where the faded plastic used to be. It was about the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, maybe still is.
As the organizer for this event, I can say that Joe was truly amazing as a Keynote presenter. While admittedly knowing very little about turfgrass, he took the topic we presented, ran with it, and melded these great stories into it, with the perfect amount of humor and seriousness, humility and pride, with the highest degree of professionalism throughout. I can say, without equivocation, that Joe was the best Keynote STMA has had in my five years there. Thank you Joe!
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[...] I’ll skip this excerpt on this one, but Joe P. telling stories about Buck O’Neil = awesome. [...]
[...] Posnanski is always a great read, and this article on turf is no different. Be sure to stick around until the end for a great Buck O’Neil [...]
Looking back I think that baseball in the 70’s and 80’s was the best ever. ( And I’m old enough to remember Koufax pitching so it’s not just a “in my youth they were giants” thing.) The balance between speed and power, offence and defence, pitching and hitting were, I think, just about right.
Unfortunately, I think that more than a little of this balance came from the prevalence of turf, which overall harms players and hence the game.
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