Finally, America’s favorite past-time is back in action and baseball fans everywhere can see the light at the end of the tunnel that is filled with warm summer nights, family fun, fresh-cracked peanuts, favorite MLB teams and well-manicured outfields.

Speaking of well-manicured outfields, how do those perfect and sometimes awe-inspiring designs get etched into the outfield grass anyways?

It all starts with an idea. Much like the Davison invention method starts with an inventor’s invention idea, so too do the groundskeepers’ outfield designs.

For groundskeepers, the grass in the outfield is their canvas and their imagination is the paint, or in this case, the lawn tools that make their ideas come to fruition.

Checkerboard, diamond and argyle patterns are the traditional designs in the field. But, in recent years, these designs have become more elaborate.

For instance, after the tragic events of the Boston Marathon bombing, groundskeepers at Fenway Park honored victims with an outfield design that incorporated the Boston “B” and the word “strong.”

In order to create the designs that you see in the outfield, the groundskeepers use a combination of lawn striping and grass bending. Many professional groundskeepers use old-fashioned reel movers in order to cut a stadium’s grass. Additionally, just behind the blades of the mower, is an attached lawn roller that is used to bend the grass down. The pattern that is created is revealed by light shining off of the bent grass.

The idea behind the grass bends is that, for example, when you look at your own lawn, the blades of grass that are leaning away from you will look lighter. This is caused by the sunlight reflecting off the entire blade of grass. While on the other hand, the darker green stripes are formed by the blades of grass leaning toward you with the sunlight reflecting only off the tips of the blades.

The more traditional checkerboard pattern is created by passing over the grass in side-by-side rows. The first row is going north-to-south, followed by east-to-west stripes in the grass that intersect the north-to-south stripes.

Field patterns and designs add an extra element of allure when visiting a major league ballpark. The key to success is that the design is eye-catching, yet it won’t affect the playability of the surface.

Want to see an inside look into the mind of an MLB groundskeeper? Take a look at this video!

After this long, cold winter, we can’t wait for the first pitch of the traditional opening day of the MLB season to be thrown on Monday, March 31st!

Copyright Davison 2014

Sources:

http://www.landscapeonline.com/research/article/9733

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/stories/2001-06-27-ballpark-designs.htm

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question612.htm

Media:

http://binaryapi.ap.org/9c223091584046a698a6d9f46fd82617/940x.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXQDP5IqowQ

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Because the quest for the World Series is currently underway, we thought it would be a great time to get a deeper look at the up-and-coming technology of this beloved sport. Hopefully, we won’t strike out with this blog, but instead, hit a homerun with our readers! Alright, now that we have that out of our system, let’s take a look at how technology continues to evolve in the world of major league baseball.

The game of baseball has come a long way since the days when it was first invented and introduced in America. Since then, there have been many changes, both in the rules and the technology that is involved in the sport. In the next year, the game of baseball will get another facelift and a few technologically savvy ideas will be employed to give managers the opportunity to challenge a previous play and create an interactive experience for fans.

All of these additions to the sport will add another layer of substance and grit to America’s favorite pastime, baseball.

Gone are the days of managers rushing the field with a head full of steam and a face furious with anger after the umpire makes a controversial call.  In the 2014 MLB season, the league plans to debut instant replay. Commissioner Bud Selig noted that this was “a historic day” for Major League Baseball.

The idea of the instant replay will allow managers to review virtually every play other than the strike zone. The managers of each team will get three challenges per game, one to be used through the first six innings and two for the final three innings. The idea for the rules continues in saying that the challenges don’t carry over; so, for instance, if a manager doesn’t use a challenge through the first six innings, he will only have two left.

This new rule is very much like the ability given to NFL coaches to challenge a play on the field. However, the idea of challenges in MLB differs, because baseball managers have to challenge the play almost immediately after it happens, while NFL coaches have a few minutes to decide whether or not to challenge the play.

The technology for the 2014 season has infiltrated the world of apps as well. The MLB also plans to equip each stadium with Apple’s new iBeacon indoor mapping technology. The app will use Bluetooth, as opposed to GPS, to sense where you are in the stadium and provide you with information or promotions. In essence, the idea is to create micro-locations within the stadium that offer users different experiences.

The idea behind this technology is that it will enhance a fan’s enjoyment by creating a completely interactive experience.

This is made possible through the At the Ballpark app that each user can access as they approach and enter the stadium. On this app, a unique ballpark guide and map will be available, as well as the ability to display a user’s ticket barcode that can be used as they enter the turnstile.

This will be the first time that a professional sports league will use Bluetooth and iBeacon technologies in stadiums.  This new app idea will allow end users to map indoor locations, such as stadiums and malls. The MLB has not yet announced which team will begin the 2014 season using iBeacon in their ballpark.

These new technologies individually enhance the game of baseball by instituting the idea of instant replays into the sport, while the interactive app will enhance the overall experience at their respective major league baseball stadiums. It seems that the 2014 MLB season will be full of technological changes to improve and enhance America’s favorite pastime, baseball.

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mlb-plans-expanded-instant-replay-2014-article-1.1427815

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2013/09/mlb-plans-to-introduce-apples-ibeacon-indoor-mapping-technology-in-2014

Multimedia:

http://www.fenwaynation.com/2013_01_01_archive.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_field

The post New Updates to the Oldest Game in America: Baseball appeared first on Davison.

But what if we were to tell you that Abner Doubleday did NOT invent baseball, as most of us have been led to believe?  In fact, Doubleday never even claimed to have invented baseball, and his journals and diaries never once mentions the new sport. So who did invent this wonderful game and how did it get to be the phenomenon it has become over the past century? Well, let’s find out.

Though disputed by some sport historians, the game of baseball appears to be based on the English game of rounders, which became popular in the United States in the 18th century, and was often called “townball” or “base.” The first known American reference to baseball appeared in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1791, in which a town ordinance banned playing “baseball” within 80 yards of the Town Hall.  And through the early 1800’s, Americans began playing baseball more and more, on informal teams and using local rules.

But the credit of inventing the game of baseball that was the forerunner of the modern game goes to a man named Alexander Cartwright, who began the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club as a social club for the upper middle classes of New York City. In 1845, Cartwright devised the first rules and regulations that were accepted for the modern game of baseball. Though other clubs existed and were playing by their own rules and making their own versions of the game at the time, it was the Cartwright’s Knickerbockers style (later called the New York style) of the game that became the most popular.

The first recorded baseball game was held in 1846, at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. In that game, Cartwright’s Knickerbockers lost to the New York Baseball Club by a score of 23 to 1. As more teams formed in the next decade, more organization followed.  In 1858, the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBL)—the first organized baseball league—was formed. Though it started out as an amateur sport, once club owners began to take in revenue from gate admissions, several clubs began to pay their best players “under the table.” By 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first professional team when the owner openly paid all of his players and the era of professional baseball began.

Once money got involved, things began to change rapidly. In 1876, the National League was formed and began what we know of today as the modern major leagues. For instance, the National League was organized as a group of baseball teams, not players (as was done previously ), and the League imposed new rules on schedules, gambling, and player contracts. While several new leagues tried without success to emulate the National League over the next two decades, only the Western League caught on and thrived; changing its name to the American League in 1901.

By 1902, baseball as we know it was born. The two leagues signed an agreement that really established their dominance over the other independent leagues, and essentially gave them a monopoly on professional baseball. They also established the World Series, with the Boston Americans defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first World title in 1903. So while baseball has gone though many changes in style of play over the past hundred years, the game itself has remained essentially the same from those early beginnings. Now that we know who invented baseball, about the only question left is, who invented Crackerjacks?

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_baseball_in_the_United_States
http://baseball.isport.com/baseball-history/
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/Baseball.htm

Photo Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1896_Baltimore_Orioles.jpg

Photo from:  http://www.19cbaseball.com/images/early-baseball-history-print.jpg

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