Orioles ready to play ball

Groundskeeping crews at Ed Smith Stadium have been actively preparing for Spring Training for the past three months.

By Jen Blanco
| 6:04 a.m. February 25, 2016

Fans are greeted by a baseball bat chandelier when they walk through the doors of Ed Smith Stadium. The flags are representative of the Orioles championships.

Sarasota
Sports

+Spring Training By the Numbers

150,000 — Tickets the Baltimore Orioles will print for Spring Training. On average, the team sells about 120,000 tickets every Spring.

$8 — Cost of a standee ticket, which allows fans to move about throughout the stadium and watch the game from any of the designated standing room areas. Ed Smith Stadium offers about 1,000 standee tickets per game.

14,400 — Baseballs Ed Smith Stadium had on site prior to the Orioles’ equipment truck arriving on site Feb. 8. The Orioles expected to have between 15,840 and 18,000 baseballs on site in time for Spring Training.

11 — Countries whose flags are hanging in the Orioles’ film room. The flags represent the birthplace of every player on the team.

112,258 — Fans who attended Spring Training at Ed Smith Stadium in 2015. The Orioles drew a record-breaking average of 7,484 attendees per game. There are 7,500 seats inside Ed Smith Stadium.

+Sarasota Fast Facts

— The Orioles’ economic impact in the Sarasota area is more than $81 million annually.

— In the first three months of 2015, nearly 26,000 visitors from the Mid-Atlantic Region came to Sarasota County. Baltimore/Washington D.C. was the top feeder market to Sarasota County thanks in large part to an advertising campaign between the Orioles and Visit Sarasota County, which promotes the area throughout Orioles’ games both at the stadium and on television.

— More than 75,000 players, families and spectators have participated in various baseball tournaments and games at Ed Smith Stadium and the Buck O’Neil Baseball Complex since 2013.

— The Orioles’ Arts in the Ballpark event series has drawn more than 10,000 attendees to six shows at Ed Smith Stadium since the program’s inception in 2013.

SARASOTA — It’s been 144 days and counting since the Orioles closed out the 2015 season at Camden Yards, but in Sarasota, groundskeeping crews have actively been preparing for Spring Training since December.

Head groundskeeper of Florida Operations Dan Thomas and his five-person crew started building the pitching mounds, as well as all of the clay and dirt areas marking the infield and the bullpens, around Dec. 1.

Three weeks later, crews started planting grass seed; by the end of January, the fields were ready to be mowed.

“We’re in pretty good shape at that time in December,” Thomas said. “It’s really fine tuning the meat and potatoes of the field.”

Over the past month, Thomas has been out on the field on a daily basis perfecting the slopes of the field and making sure the measurements are in line with Major League Baseball’s requirements.

It’s up to Thomas to make sure the infield is smooth and level and the field in general meets the specifications of the Orioles.

“The biggest thing is to maintain it every single day,” Thomas said. “You can’t let it go and expect it to come back top notch playing surface. It doesn’t work like that.”

Earlier this year, Thomas and his crew were recognized for their hard work when Ed Smith Stadium was named the Field of the Year for professional baseball by the Sports Turf Managers Association.

The Field of the Year award is awarded to various sporting grounds members at the professional, collegiate, schools and parks and recreation levels. A panel of 15 judges rated sporting grounds based on criteria such as playability, appearance of surfaces and utilization of innovative solutions.

This year marks the first time Ed Smith Stadium has won the award.

“I was probably a lot like a junior high kid when I found out,” said Thomas, who accepted the award Jan. 22 at the annual STMA Conference and Exhibition in San Diego. “I was really excited. I didn’t have words. I was just very shocked and surprised. I started jumping up and down, and you kind of black out when you’re told something like that.”

Ed Smith Stadium was built in 1989 and underwent an extensive renovation prior to the 2011 season. The most significant improvement the Orioles have made over the years has been to the clay. All of the dirt areas have been improved through the chemistry of the soil itself, which has been chemically altered to be able to handle the Florida rain and still allow the team to play.

But Thomas isn’t just responsible for maintaining the field at Ed Smith Stadium. The Orioles have 10.5 fields in Sarasota, including a pitching field, which allows up to five pitchers and catchers to practice at once, three additional practices fields in the back — one of which is an exact replica of Camden Yards — and the Orioles’ fields at Twin Lakes Park.

“It’s a constant process,” Thomas said. “We are always doing things throughout the year that lead up to the next thing. The whole process is designed around Spring Training. Our new year actually begins April 1 when Spring Training ends. From an operations standpoint, we tailor everything around spring. It’s not something we turn on and just start mowing fields.”

Over the past six years, 640,000 fans have enjoyed Orioles baseball at Ed Smith Stadium, helping to establish numerous club and Sarasota attendance records. The Orioles expect this year to be no different.

“I walk the stadium constantly, and I know so many people recognize what great fun it is to be a part of such an exciting experience as Spring Training,” said David Rovine, Vice President of Orioles-Sarasota. “The attitude is so different. You don’t have quite the same edge. Fans can sit in the sun and have a great time. It’s exhilarating.”

Stadium officials also began preparing for Spring Stadium months ago, beginning with physical repairs to the building. The final truckload of equipment, including baseballs and uniforms, arrived at the stadium Feb. 8 in preparation for Feb. 19, the date pitchers and catchers officially reported for practice.

When the games finally begin March 2, nearly 7,500 attendees will file in under the baseball bat chandelier and into the stadium. Almost 160 employees — ranging from ushers and ticket takers to Rovine and other operations managers — will be on hand every game to ensure fans get the most out of America’s national pastime.

“We can never affect the outcome on the field, but we can affect the experience the fan has and ultimately make sure they come back time and time again,” Rovine said.