Baseball field fires: Do not use gasoline on wet fields -

When rain batters a baseball field and renders it too wet to host a game, it’s a shame for everyone involved. Sometimes some extra dirt or a quick-dry substance and a rake can solve the problem, but when there’s standing water on the field or the infield has turned into a mess of soupy mud, it’s usually best to play another day.

It is not wise — repeat: not wise — to douse the field in gasoline and set it alight, hoping the flames will dry out the playing surface.

That’s because, though the field may appear dry afterward, spilling gas all over a patch of dirt and grass will contaminate the surface. Instead of playing a game, local law enforcement may have to cordon off the diamond to investigate, and environmental regulators might have to scrape several inches of earth off the field so the gasoline doesn’t reach groundwater.

“It’s been done before, and every situation that’s out there ends with negative consequences,” Rudy Marconi, first selectman of Ridgefield, Conn., said this week, via the Ridgefield Press.

Someone tried to burn the moisture out of Ridgefield High’s baseball field this past weekend and instead caused an estimated $50,000 worth of damage, according to the paper, which reported that “six to eight inches of gas-soaked soil” needed to be removed from the diamond’s infield.

Marconi told the paper that the field was unplayable Saturday morning. Someone used gasoline around third base during the cleanup efforts, “and that seemed to work.” So the unknown participants then tried to use more gasoline. The process ended with police and firefighters on the scene, plus staffers from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

“Maybe it worked 50 to 60 years ago when there were no environmental regulations, but nowadays it’s a definite no-no,” Marconi said.

“Even in an [all-dirt] area in an infield, using fuel to dry it out would still have some lingering effect,” said Bo Jumbercotta, who consults on sports playing surfaces for Landscape Supply Inc. in Northern Virginia. “If we’re worrying about chemicals washing through and getting into a water supply, then when you put a combustible down on a skin area of an infield, it could filter through.”

The incident at the Connecticut school happened nearly a week after a Utah high school tried to burn up its baseball field, with similar results. The baseball coach at Clearfield High, 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, was placed on administrative leave after someone dumped 15 to 20 gallons of gasoline and diesel on the infield to dry up soggy conditions, a school district official told Salt Lake City’s Fox 13.

The school’s team will play road games until regulators deem the field safe for play.

Now local officials in both towns want to be very clear with baseball coaches looking for remedies for wet diamonds: Pouring gasoline on them and lighting them on fire could kill surrounding grass, contaminate the groundwater, and generally not help make fields suitable for ballgames.

“Everybody is helpful and wants to jump in to get something done,” Marconi said, “but what’s important to remember out of this is that if something doesn’t seem right or doesn’t look right, in all likelihood it isn’t right.

“ ... You cannot spread 25 gallons of gas on the infield of a baseball field — it’s all clay and it soaks right in.”

There are better ways to dry out a baseball field, Jumbercotta said, and the best method is simply investing more time into caring for the playing surface. Instead of breaking out the rakes and sprinklers in March ahead of Opening Day, work the fields in December and January.

That way, not only will the diamond respond better to treatment, but coaches will have months ahead of games to treat fields with drying agents that can make water pass through soil more quickly, or with hydrating substances that allow soil particles to hold on to excess moisture.

More high schools, Jumbercotta said, are also moving toward all-grass infields with dirt cutouts around bases. It’s an easier surface to care for, and cost-effective, too, requiring less drying or hydrating agents.

But fuel — gasoline, kerosene, diesel or any other variety — on a playing surface is never a good idea.

“The last thing you want to be doing is using fuel as an accelerant to get [a fire] going. You’re putting a combustible down on the ground,” he said. “If you pour gas into a grass area, it would immediately die and you’d need to do things to the soil to make grass grow again. It’s weird that they’re doing that.”

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