Finishing Diamonds and Other Sports Fields

A Bobcat grader attachment has paid off for the Parks and Recreation Department in Springfield, Mo.

At one time, the Parks and Recreation Department in Independence, Mo., hired a contractor to grade the dirt infields of eight baseball diamonds. When Dudley Jones was hired as the Parks Improvement Supervisor several years ago, he took a different approach.

"My job was to save the department money and to get the best bang for the dollars we spent," he says.

One of his first steps was to equip the department to do its own ballpark maintenance and other work. So he bought a Bobcat compact track loader and several attachments, including a Bobcat grader with a laser system from K.C. Bobcat, Blue Springs.

"I'm tremendously satisfied with the decision to buy that grading equipment," Jones says. "That investment has paid off big time."

The money he's saved has been used, among other purposes, to buy more Bobcat attachments. The list of attachments now includes an auger, backhoe, dozer, tiller and trencher, which are used to save even more money on a wide variety of jobs.

Each infield is graded several times a year. Prior to grading, the compact track loader is used with a Bobcat tiller to prepare the infield. Then, the operator changes to the Bobcat grader attachment to grade the infield so that it slopes away from the pitcher’s mound with a 1-percent grade.

The laser system produces a rotating laser beam to establish the desired reference slope for the laser receivers. The resulting graded slope allows storm water to drain from the pitcher's mound to the grass and into an underground drainage system.

Setting up the laser system to grade an infield takes his operators about 30 minutes, Jones reports.

"One operator can grade an infield in about an hour," he says. Using this electronic system, a relatively new operator can grade with better precision than experienced operators working without a laser system.

This year Jones and his crew are using the Bobcat compact track loader-grader unit to construct a 140-acre athletic complex that will include sloped playing fields for soccer, football, softball and baseball.

"Our laser grading system is fantastic," Jones says. "It saves the city some major capital expenses."

For more information on how you can profit from a Bobcat laser-controlled box blade or grader attachment, visit your local Bobcat dealer today.