Tampa – Dan Moeller has been known for two decades since some children are going to find out on his staff: When pulling a sail over Infield in the rain, it is best to pull the corners out of the rain. The guys stretching from the center are those who stumble, slip and end up under the matter. Wet sails are also a heavy sail. Getting from the field is often harder than it.
“You feel it in your Hammys,” Moeller said.
As a director of projects and field operations for Tampa Bay Rays, Moeller is in charge of the team crew. It has seven full -time employees and eight part -time workers, and most of them gathered at the Infield Grass 32 minutes before the first playground on Friday to watch one of their own squirting Sunburst logo on the back of the hill.
For the first time, this logo fits more than the name of the franchise. The rays really played baseball in the sun.
Friday’s Opener of the season in George M. Steinbrenner Field could hardly improve. Six months after Hurricane Milton shred the roof of the Tropican field, the rays had a new home. The building was transformed by marking rays. The temperature was 84 degrees with a cooling breeze in the left field. Ryan Pepiot built six shifts, the two-run of the rally tied the game in seventh place, and the cameraon Misner-27-year-old man in the first schedule of daily day-to-ninth Homer. The whole thing was the triumph of organizational solutions to the problems and carrying out late inning. The rays are undefeated.
And now the real challenge begins.
The rays celebrate Walk-off Cameroon Misner to give them 3-2 victories in their opening on Steinbrenner Field. (Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)
It begins that infielders drip sweat in moisture in Florida and for outfielders fight the wind at the open -air stadium without the third deck. It begins for the beginning jugs who are trying to go through six shifts in the blazing summer heat, and for coaching staff feared delay of rain and fear in BullPen-Coucking’s doubles. This summer will not be in baseball, such as Steinbrenner Field, a place in baseball.
“We want to create some advantage of the home field,” said Rays Kevin Cash manager. “I would like to look in two or three weeks when it warms up in the summer and see that we are accepting it and doing other teams about it.”
Moeller doesn’t want to hear any complaints. Mound is still 60 feet, six inches from the home board. The bases are still 90 feet apart. Baseball is baseball. But the ground crew, which has cut its teeth, keeps the artificial lawn in an environment controlled climate, must now water and chop and maintain the ball field in the sun.
Moeller and the main landmark Mike Deubel know what people assume about their work in Tropicana Field: that they were basically in charge of the carpet. It is a description that is absolutely bad and absolutely unfair (although the fact that they had to sweep sunflower seeds using a garbage bin and a broom it did not help dispel this idea). Do you know how to maintain moisture in infield dirt, which is constantly sucked in concrete below and air conditioning above? It’s not easy.
Moeller and his crew, however, now control natural grass in a notorious uncertain climate, which at the moment passes from the blazing heat to a sudden downpour. Moeller and Deubel previously worked outside. They know what they are. Some of their employees, on the other hand, are at a night lesson in patience, accuracy and wet socks.
Moeller increased his budget to allow additional clothes so his crew could change when he got into a pop -up shower, and he sent most of his crew to work for Yankees during the spring training to learn first to prepare the field (some of the Yankes crew).
The beam crew had to pull out the sail several times in the spring, but still not pulling it in the middle of the eighth shift when Pete Fairbanks released in Bullpen and the center shower became a total downpour because the referees were waiting too long, crossed, crossed with fingers, crossed, crossed fingers. When they soaked, they did not pull the sail, it came late, and when they return home, it is impossible to say.
“Welcome to big leagues,” Moeller said.
The same idea applies to Rays players. Many of them have been in big leagues for years, but I never succeeded. Pepiot spent a little more time in the sauna this spring. He also stayed in the hot tub and went with his wife after training. Anything to get his body to get used to warmth.
“No one will ever get used to 105 and disgusting moisture,” Pepiot said. “But a little more acclimatized.”
The rays tested their players in spring training to find out how much they were sweating – the second Baseman Brandon Lowe is Tier 2, a slight sweater – and used this information to help individualize plans, how many water and sodium players will have to replace each night. Shortstop Taylor Walls, however, grew up in Georgia and played a college ball on Florida State. He is convinced that heat and moisture will be managed for nine shifts. She worries more about rain, because when the sudden coastal showers in the Gulf of Mexico persist, some balls will rain and they will be exhausting in this climate.
This is also the most worried about cash. It can limit the work before playing the team to rest and can get them full of water to keep them hydrated, but double heads are hell on the pitch, and while Steinbrenner Field has fans with the trench, there is nothing to stop the rain.
Major League baseball tuned the schedule of rays in respect of the weather in Florida. Rays play 19 home games between March 28 and 20 April, which means that they will play almost a quarter of their home schedule before the beginning of summer. The compromise is that the rays will play only 12 home games from 23rd to 18th August. They will spend about half of August on a two -week, four -fighter, west coastal trip that will include a stop in Sacrament to play athletics in other Minor League Ballpark visiting the main league game this season.
Sun, rain, wind and shadows at home. Longer than the usual road trips. It will be completely unknown, but the rays won the day of the start with a strong pitching staff and a deep bench, so maybe it is not so different in the end.
“A lot of differences,” Cash said. “But now we can inhale and we will probably spend hours talking about how we can achieve our advantage.”
(Upper photo of Field of Steinbrenner on Friday: Mike Carlson/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
