History of Sliding Pits in Baseball Fields

[jlog3000]

I have a curious question. Are there any links or sources about the history of sliding pits in baseball fields, at least in the MLB level? And if so, who were the first and subsequent teams to apply such on their stadiums, and who were the first ones that eventually dropped them out to be in favor of natural grass base path park fields? All I know was that the Blue Jays were the last team to do so in 2016 or 2015, thus ending the artificial turf sliding pit parks in the MLB.

 

And on a sidenote, could sliding pits (plus the separate small round areas (being the pitcher mound and catcher box)) be placed on a natural grass stadium and make it work, or it only applies to an artificial turf stadium?

[AnPheitseog]

3 hours ago, jlog3000 said:

I have a curious question. Are there any links or sources about the history of sliding pits in baseball fields, at least in the MLB level? And if so, who were the first and subsequent teams to apply such on their stadiums, and who were the first ones that eventually dropped them out to be in favor of natural grass base path park fields? All I know was that the Blue Jays were the last team to do so in 2016 or 2015, thus ending the artificial turf sliding pit parks in the MLB.

 

And on a sidenote, could sliding pits (plus the separate small round areas (being the pitcher mound and catcher box)) be placed on a natural grass stadium and make it work, or it only applies to an artificial turf stadium?

I'm not going to source this, but going to respond of memory so I'll take corrections as needed.

 

The primary use of sliding pits in MLB were due to multipurpose stadiums, where MLB and NFL teams(soccer was yet to be a force in the US at the start) would share a stadium and be awful for both. These stadiums also used artifical turf, rather than grass, to make the maintence easier.

 

Sliding pits made it so the turnover waseasier, because you only had a little bit of dirt to remove as compared to a full infield, while keeping the saftey for the players. The Blue Jays, as you noted, were the last to have them. This was due to the Toronto Arognauts of the CFL playing at Rogers Centre as well(In fact, my first even at Rogers Centre was an Argos game in 2013, not a Blue Jays game). Once they kicked the Argos out and started renovations, they made it into a baseball only facility with still artifical turf but a full infield.

 

So, the history of the sliding pits in MLB follows the history of multipurpose stadiums in MLB due to ease of turnover. If you look at the exceptions, the stadium in Oakland hosted both the Raiders and the A's. However, they still had a full infield and the Raiders played on dirt for the beginning parts of their season and it was beautiful. They are not the only ones to do so, and I believe we have a thread here dedicated to that glory.

 

There are also teams in Japan that use the sliding pits now, even without a near. Yokohama Stadium, home of my Yokohama DeNA Baystars, has a full turf field and sliding pits. You also still see it at the collegiate level, with Pitt doing the same despite it being a full park.

[OnWis97]

1 hour ago, AnPheitseog said:

I'm not going to source this, but going to respond of memory so I'll take corrections as needed.

 

The primary use of sliding pits in MLB were due to multipurpose stadiums, where MLB and NFL teams(soccer was yet to be a force in the US at the start) would share a stadium and be awful for both. These stadiums also used artifical turf, rather than grass, to make the maintence easier.

 

Sliding pits made it so the turnover waseasier, because you only had a little bit of dirt to remove as compared to a full infield, while keeping the saftey for the players. The Blue Jays, as you noted, were the last to have them. This was due to the Toronto Arognauts of the CFL playing at Rogers Centre as well(In fact, my first even at Rogers Centre was an Argos game in 2013, not a Blue Jays game). Once they kicked the Argos out and started renovations, they made it into a baseball only facility with still artifical turf but a full infield.

 

So, the history of the sliding pits in MLB follows the history of multipurpose stadiums in MLB due to ease of turnover. If you look at the exceptions, the stadium in Oakland hosted both the Raiders and the A's. However, they still had a full infield and the Raiders played on dirt for the beginning parts of their season and it was beautiful. They are not the only ones to do so, and I believe we have a thread here dedicated to that glory.

 

There are also teams in Japan that use the sliding pits now, even without a near. Yokohama Stadium, home of my Yokohama DeNA Baystars, has a full turf field and sliding pits. You also still see it at the collegiate level, with Pitt doing the same despite it being a full park.

I was trying to think of any baseball-only stadiums with artificial turf and there were surprisingly few.  What you say about the football/baseball conversions makes sense but I had always thought that the distinction between pits and full infield was based more on grass vs. turf until the Rays went full infield at that RIP.

 

Royals Stadium had artificial turf for much of the 1970s/1980s (see photos here) and it had sliding pits. I can't think of any grass fields with sliding pits...dirt infields on grass fields were used at times by the Raiders, Broncos, Dolphins, and maybe others (probably the Chargers, but I don't specifically recall).

[Sport]

Never heard them called sliding pits before, but that makes sense. My high school's practice field had sliding pits on a natural grass field, which made infield practice kind of dumb. And I never thought about that before, but the Royals could've had a full dirt infield if they wanted to since they didn't share the stadium with anyone. I know the Padres, A's, Indians, and probably some others like the Tigers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets probably used full dirt infields despite sharing the field with an NFL team at one time or another. It seems like the distinction was if you used natural grass then you went full infield and made the football team play on the dirt. If you had artificial turf you used the dirt islands. I do remember playing All-Star Baseball 2000 on N64 and thinking it was cool that the Rays had a full dirt infield inside of the dome. 

 

Grew up watching baseball on astroturf so it still feels familiar and normal, but if I showed this picture to my nephews they'd probably laugh at the field. 

 

 

 

 

 

[TBGKon]

38 minutes ago, Sport said:

 I do remember playing All-Star Baseball 2000 on N64 and thinking it was cool that the Rays had a full dirt infield inside of the dome. 

 

 

IIRC, Tropicana Field was the first true dome with a full dirt infield.  Of course, they didn't have to worry about football conversion.

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, AnPheitseog said:

liding pits made it so the turnover waseasier, because you only had a little bit of dirt to remove as compared to a full infield, while keeping the saftey for the players.

 

At least at the Vet, players routinely tripped (at best) or permanently injured themselves by getting their feet caught in the seam where the pit cover was zipped on.  To my knowledge, dirt wasn't removed - it was just covered up.

 

You can kinda see it here:

 

[dont care]

12 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

At least at the Vet, players routinely tripped (at best) or permanently injured themselves by getting their feet caught in the seam where the pit cover was zipped on.  To my knowledge, dirt wasn't removed - it was just covered up.

 

You can kinda see it here:

 

This is true, only the bitching mound would be removed, everything else just gets covered up, especially in those days where it was just glorified green carpet but harder.

[oldschoolvikings]

1 hour ago, dont care said:

This is true, only the bitching mound would be removed, everything else just gets covered up, especially in those days where it was just glorified green carpet but harder.

 

Bitching mound.

[Sec19Row53]

I don't think doing the cut outs on a grass field would work, as you'd wear down the grass in the basepaths.

[jlog3000]

12 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

Bitching mound.

 

I assume that it was a typo by accident from the one who typed previously. lol

 

4 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

I don't think doing the cut outs on a grass field would work, as you'd wear down the grass in the basepaths.

 

How come, might I ask? If it was me, we wouldn't know unless we try.

[Sec19Row53]

2 minutes ago, jlog3000 said:

 

How come, might I ask? If it was me, we wouldn't know unless we try.

Have you ever noticed how outfield grass needs to be replaced periodically? That's from outfielders literally standing there. Imagine the wear and tear of running repeatedly in the same line.

I also image that it is easier/safer to get traction on dirt than grass, which is important during rain.

[dont care]

1 hour ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Have you ever noticed how outfield grass needs to be replaced periodically? That's from outfielders literally standing there. Imagine the wear and tear of running repeatedly in the same line.

I also image that it is easier/safer to get traction on dirt than grass, which is important during rain.

When do they play in rain?

[Sec19Row53]

Before a rain delay is called, when the field is wet and running on grass is slicker than on dirt.

[BBTV]

2 hours ago, dont care said:

When do they play in rain?

 

I guess you didn't see game 5 of last season's NLCS, where the ball was slipping out of pitchers' hands and the grounds crew had to put the "diamond dry" on the field (and patch large puddles) before the top half of each inning (which actually put the Padres at a huge advantage since it was back to crap by the bottom of the inning):

 

 

Also 

 

  

[Sykotyk]

If you look up the history of baseball... the infield 'dirt' was really a byproduct of simply wearing down poorly maintained grass fields. The base paths, the catcher's area, the pathways to the batters boxes, the infield itself, was mostly formed by overuse (think the absolute earliest days of baseball, such as until the late 1800s). Then that 'wear pattern' became standardized so no one could have an advantage. But at the beginning the difference between grass and dirt areas of the field were not defined or required. They just simply happened due to overuse of the field. Eventually it just because the standard for preparing the field for use to just already remove the grass where it was not going to be survive.

 

Interesting that the 'warning track' took a very long time to be added.  It was literally a track, and since players didn't need to look for the wall until they left the grass to the track it really helped outfielders. So, everyone adopted it pretty quickly. But it's weird that it's the first real use of 'dirt' as a game-play measure and not just 'because that's the way it's always been'.

[OnWis97]

20 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

Bitching mound.

That was the name of the area around the pitching rubber on days that Roger Clemens pitched.

[Sec19Row53]

I always thought these were referred to as 'cut outs'. Sliding pits were a training area for sliding, or at least that's what I thought.

[McCall]

48 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

I always thought these were referred to as 'cut outs'. Sliding pits were a training area for sliding, or at least that's what I thought.

Yeah me too.  I've literally never heard them called "sliding pits" outside of this thread.

[Sykotyk]

2 hours ago, McCall said:

Yeah me too.  I've literally never heard them called "sliding pits" outside of this thread.

Well, either jlog3000 edited the Wiki page on baseball fields, or at least one other place referenced them as Sliding Pits. I too, had only heard them called Cut Outs as well.

[jlog3000]

The reason I call it as "sliding pits" is because I saw it from some post on the "baseball" subreddit on Reddit; because I never knew that the non-artificial turf parts of the baseball field were called as "cut outs" (putting aside the circular ones being the home plate area and the pitcher's mound) nor I have seen it mentioned as such.

 

Also I wonder if an artificial turf-designed ballpark could work on a natural grassed stadium, even if that stadium is domed (so that we won't have to worry about weather issues, unless that dome has a roof leak a la Metrodome).