SAN FRANCISCO — Replacement grass will be nearby and at the ready when the Sutter Health Park sod begins to deteriorate this spring with regular play from both the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team and the newcomer Athletics.
Given the unique circumstances of a major league club sharing its ballpark with a minor league affiliate from another franchise — the Sacramento River Cats — contingency plans are in place to maintain the grass quality.
Murray Cook, Major League Baseball’s field consultant and president of BrightView Sports Turf, said both longtime head groundskeepers from the Giants and A’s have been part of efforts to keep the playing surface in top form. In addition, the on-site grounds crew staff has been quadrupled in size, he said.
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“We looked at the process of what it was going to take to manage two teams, it is a little bit uncharted to have a major league team, a minor league team share a field for an entire season,” Cook said in a video call Monday.
The A’s will begin what is expected to be a three-year stint in Sacramento next Monday when they host the Chicago Cubs for a three-game series. The club hopes to move into a new ballpark in Las Vegas for the 2028 season.
Last fall it was announced the ballpark would feature natural grass instead of artificial turf as initially planned, given the extreme heat in California’s capital.
“It’s not a secret that players prefer playing on natural grass, across the board. Right, everybody knows that, players know that,” Cook said. “I think that’s what kind of pushed this thing toward natural grass. We never said it wasn’t doable, we never said it was going to be ideal versus same thing with synthetic grass. I think at the end of the day we could do both, make them both work.”
Still, high-traffic areas — such as in front of the mound, around home plate, shortstop-second base area — Cook expects will likely need some work for wear and tear by May or early June, pulling from nearby backup fields. Drones will help monitor the field conditions daily along with on-field sensors to detect areas that need sod. A watering system has been installed under the infield clay as well to complement the daily watering.
The Giants played the River Cats at Sutter Health Park on Sunday and reports were positive, “and it sounded like everyone had a great time,” according to Cook.
The existing system features a series of drain lines underneath the playing surface that have the ability to pump cool air into the field, moving it through the soil base and providing a cooling system — which also can help promote root growth.
“In addition, it also has the ability to, if there’s a heavy rainstorm, you can flip the switch and you can pull the water off the field,” Cook said. “Or it can put water under the field from underneath to help the root structure to become healthier as well. So it’s got multiple options to help the grass stay healthier throughout the year.”
