Tigers to truck out snow to make way for new Comerica Park grass

NATHAN SKID / Crain's Detroit Business

New Kentucky bluegrass will be installed this month at Comerica Park in the first full-field sod replacement at the ballpark since 2007.

The Detroit Tigers soon will begin using plows, trucks and snow blowers to remove the layer of snow from the playing surface at Comerica Park so new grass can be installed and ready in time for Opening Day on March 31, the team said today.

As reported Monday by Crain's, the Tigers organization bought 103,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass from Fort Morgan, Colo.-based Graff's Turf Farm.

The turf is to arrive in refrigerated trucks beginning the week of March 17.

This will be first full-field replacement at the 15-year-old ballpark since 2007.

Since the initial set-up for the Winter Festival in November, when the grass was removed for a temporary ice hockey rink, the entire playing surface has been covered with a textile filter fabric that prevents debris and contaminates from entering the sub-surface, the team said.

The fabric also allows the Tigers' groundskeeping staff to remove snow without removing or displacing the root zone.

The infield and turf areas since Monday have been heated with surface-level construction-grade, 750,000 BTU trailer heaters, which blow warm air under large tarps, the team said.

Once the snow is gone, the field will be leveled.

Read the original here:
Tigers to truck out snow to make way for new Comerica Park grass