San Juan Capistrano, CA – AstroTurf, the undisputed leader in the baseball synthetic turf market recently held an educational seminar at JSerra High School. The event, titled “Synthetic Turf and Baseball – How AstroTurf is Changing the Game” served to educate consumers on artificial turf and dispel any negative perceptions that other non-baseball specific artificial products may have created.
Some of the perceptions that artificial turf is too slow for baseball, or that it is spongy, or that there is rubber everywhere were addressed by not only some of the best experts in the turf business but also some of the most respected people in the game of baseball. Dodgers legend, Eric Karros, University of San Francisco Head Baseball Coach, Nino Giarratano, and JSerra Head Baseball Coach, Brett Kay all were on hand to speak about their experience with AstroTurf’s Diamond Series turf. Joining these baseball experts as presenters were AstroTurf Regional Sales Managers, Pat Cassa and Greg Morales.
Over 50 people attended the event including school district officials, athletic directors, baseball coaches and designers. The event had the feel of a baseball camp with different stations set up to demonstrate the performance of the different parts of JSerra’s AstroTurf field. Ground balls were hit and fielded to showcase playability. A sliding demonstration was performed to show off AstroTurf’s patented RootZone. RootZone is a texturized fiber system that curls down and acts like a net to encapsulate the infill, reducing the migration. Regular slides, head first slides, and slides from perfect distances all resulted in no infill splash and proved one more time why AstroTurf systems are different.
A presentation at the mound covered mound construction and AstroTurf’s ERA turf (Extra Resilience Area) which features an incredibly dense layer of slit film fibers and a RootZone for added durability to the most used and abused regions in sports. USF’s Nino Giarrantano stated that his one regret with his field is that he doesn’t have an ERA mound but will soon be getting one installed. Moving on to home plate, the conversation on ERA and the ease of replacing panels continued. Coach Kay who was also a pro catcher talked to the crowd about how the bounce from throws coming from the outfield as well as from pitches that fall short of the plate were all true. It is a perfect example of how AstroTurf’s Diamond Series achieves the most natural playability of all synthetic turf systems, by tailoring a range of unique products to each area of the field.
The day concluded with a freestyle discussion on the mound as AstroTurf’s panel experts spoke about “Why Diamond Series?”. Dodgers great, Eric Karros, expressed his opinion of the day’s activities by saying “I had a great day with AstroTurf and AFE… their innovation and expertise is unparalleled. I learn something new every time. AstroTurf is an easy choice for me.”
The attendees had high praise for the event with Michael Bishop of the Santa Ana USD saying, “my greatest takeaway from this workshop was how AstroTurf products can be customized to meet the unique budget and needs of all types of school field applications.”
Vince Madsen, Director of Facilities Planning for Wiseburn Unified School District said, “My takeaway was amazing technical information about the makeup of all the detailed-components needed for the safety and play of our high school baseball and softball programs. AstroTurf brought in experts from the high school, college and professional levels of successful baseball programs to share their experiences of the product compared to the old grass fields which was priceless. It has completely changed my understanding of the baseball field and it could not have been a better event.”
Mark Baginski of Verde Design had high praise for the event as well. “The recent tour of the JSerra baseball field was a few hours well spent. The review of the AstroTurf product line in a real-world application including having actual baseball activities occurring concurrently with the narrative discussions by the AstroTurf team greatly enhanced my perspective of this system. Great job setting this up and very informative.”
This event was made possible with the cooperation and participation of JSerra High School and AFE Sports. To learn more about AstroTurf’s Diamond Series or the other lines of AstroTurf products, visit www.astroturf.com to review product information or contact one of our well-qualified artificial turf consultants.
About Diamond Series: The Diamond Series is a family of AstroTurf® products tailored to mimic the performance of each area of the baseball field. Outfield, infield, base paths, pitcher’s mound, batters’ boxes and warning tracks are each surfaced with unique AstroTurf products designed specifically to replicate natural field playability.
About AstroTurf®: For athletes and sport enthusiasts, AstroTurf® has redefined the way the game is played. The brand offers advanced, state-of-the-art, multi-sport and specialized synthetic turf systems with proprietary engineered technologies. A growing number of high schools, colleges, professional sports teams and municipalities continue to select AstroTurf-branded products for their premium quality, technical superiority, and safety. To learn more, visit AstroTurf’s website at www.astroturf.com.
About AFE Sports: Serving Southern California for over 22 years, AFE Sports is a self-performing design/build firm specializing in “soup to nuts” construction. A proud partner of AstroTurf®, AFE Sports is the benchmark for quality sports park construction and athletic field engineering.