HOT SPRINGS -- As a very versatile park that will receive a lot of use, the new Majestic Park baseball complex is being built to accommodate just that, as turf is now being laid in preparation for the park's fall opening.
Turf was installed on the first field last Saturday with the remaining four fields to follow. Majestic Park General Manager Derek Phillips said the decision to go with turf instead of grass and dirt came down to simple practicality and doing what's best for how the park will be used in the upcoming years.
"I've been running tournaments and ball since the late '90s and I've had to rain out a hundred to a thousand games -- I don't know," he said. "And if you have a downpour here, within 15 minutes you can get back on the field and start playing. You don't all have all that maintenance work of getting the field dry and prepping the dirt. And look at these beautiful white lines. They're there. We don't have to repaint and rechalk these constantly. That's a big money saver."
Over time, Phillips said he expects the use of turf to save a substantial amount of costs in groundwork maintenance as well as the additional staffing that would go along with it.
Having turf fields also helps ensure teams can still play in the event of rain. He noted the baseball seasons typically run from February to July and there is usually a significant amount of rain during the bulk of that time period.
"We're not missing all the games that we would have missed in a rainout," he said. "And even while you're playing, if you have a tournament, you're constantly -- in between games -- fixing the fields back up. You know, they play on them, they mess them up, and you fix them back up. That takes a lot of staff and a lot of equipment and supplies as in dirt and chalk and paint. You play a game on this and you walk off. You can play the next game without really any work. And so it's a big money saver and it keeps us from missing any games, which I think's a huge advantage and such a plus for us going with this all-turf field."
Before the turf goes down, Phillips said gray rock is added after the initial earthwork to act as a base for drainage. A thicker rock is first laid to a couple of inches before finer rock is laid on top and smoothed out and evenly graded.
Laying the turf, he explained, is the second step and after all five fields are turfed, workers come back and stitch together the seamed areas so the seams are no longer visible. The final step involves the fill spreading.
"They'll come back in with the fill and spread it basically like sand on grass on a golf course, or even a baseball field," he said.
The entire turfing process on all five fields takes 30 to 45 days depending on the weather, he said, noting the four youth fields will be completed first, followed by the larger main field.
As the complex will host anything from city league baseball games to college baseball tournaments, it is set up to serve a wide variety of events.
"We set each field up as well to host pretty much anything you can imagine from boys baseball like from T-ball all the way up to college age on the big field," Phillips said. "And they all use different base distances. So we have the ability to move our bases around and even host girls softball as well with the different pitching rubber and base distances that they use -- very versatile park and will get a lot of use for baseball and some softball as well."
The project is still on schedule and expected to be complete toward the end of August up to mid-September, he said.
Other work being performed includes finishing up some of the overhang and decorative arch work along with fencing and restroom/concession facilities. A lot of concrete will be coming in as well, he said, for the plaza and sidewalk areas before the final landscaping is performed.
The two championship fields will feature grandstand seating while the other three will have covered bleacher seating with backs and sides. Room is also provided for those who wish to bring their own seating.
"If you've been to a youth game, people like to bring their lawn chairs and their tents and things like that," Phillips said. "And there's areas between the grandstand and the dugouts for that seating to happen. And you can also sit in that concrete pad as well on seating. People will do that.
"From dugout to dugout, you know, people will sit right up against [the backstop netting] to watch the games. So we'll have quite a bit of seating for people to come to all these games. People don't generally use all the permanent seating you have in place anyway so we left some room for people to sit and have the seating to be a little bit flexible," he said.
Regarding the degree of planning that went into the complex grounds -- which, once upon a time, served as one of the homes for Major League Baseball spring training -- Phillips said it has been a step-by-step process the whole way.
"Some of the things we've seen as it started to lay out, you know, that we've said, 'Hey let's do this a little different than that,' and just trying to get it just right for what we're gonna use it for," he said. "So yeah, it's a ton of planning. We're about a year in, creeping upon a year in, to building it and I think it's just a beautiful park and this turf to me just -- it looks awesome.
"I can just imagine what a 10-year-old pulling in here and getting to play on these fields -- what they would think, you know, versus what maybe I grew up playing on. This is as nice as you'll find anywhere. I'm really proud to have it here in Hot Springs and use it for our community league and for tournaments to bring tourism and the tourism dollars here to Hot Springs," he said.
"A lot of the Hall of Famers played on this site and you can see that on the Historic Baseball Trail, but we're also gonna showcase the history here. We've got a signage plan that'll run along these sidewalks as you enter the park and it'll be like two-sided entry signs that you can stop and read and take pictures with that show -- on a specific player, like a Babe Ruth or a Hank Aaron or a Jackie Robinson -- and it'll give the history of how they played here."