Fussing Over Football Fields

The rain-soaked abomination of a football game that Pittsburgh and Miami played on Monday night has a lot of people whining over the condition of Heinz Field. Sure, the field was a mess, but on the other hand, you're playing football in late November in the northern part of the United States. What the hell do you expect?

I guess the answer is that people expect quite a bit out of football fields these days. NFL fields start out the season better manicured than Augusta National's fairways, but they definitely endure a pounding. It's just unreasonable to think that natural grass fields in Cleveland and Pittsburgh are going to be anything but painted green dirt by this time of year, and efforts to prevent that by madly resodding fields after the growing season has ended only make this worse.

Of course, weird decisions like allowing four high school games and a college game to be played on Heinz Field right before a Steelers home game contribute to the problem, but I can't help but think that the team's efforts to fuss around with that field only made things worse. Come to think of it, efforts like this usually do make things worse. Remember the mess that the Horseshoe turned into last season? The Buckeyes replaced the field twice during the 2006 season, and ultimately decided to throw in the towel and put in Field Turf.

The Browns have had more success with their natural grass field, but only because they go to heroic lengths to keep it up. Think your neighbor is a Lawn Nazi? Check out the Browns' groundskeepers.

Back in the day, teams just didn't fuss with their fields this much. Remember when it rained, and players actually got mud on their uniforms? That didn't bother me. In fact, when I was a kid, the ability to roll around in the mud without your mom yelling at you was one of the best things about playing football. Now when it rains on college or pro fields, players just get wet, not dirty. Want to know why? The invention of something called Prescription Athletic Turf back in the early 1970s. This stuff and variants on it suck the water away from the grass and the soil underneath it, and prevent the ground from getting soggy, even if you're playing in a monsoon.

I guess these improvements to the playing fields are a good thing from the perspective of player safety, but I really do miss the mud. Besides that, I just think teams have gotten to the point where they've lost their perspective. Sure, you want a safe field for the guys you've invested millions of dollars in to play on, but you shouldn't aim to have a PGA Tour fairway to play on in Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Chicago in December. It just ain't gonna happen, and if you want it to, you're better off putting in Field Turf than trying to resod dead fields in December or January.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems to me that two things in sports that just aren't as tough as they used to be are pitchers' arms and football playing fields. Then again, maybe it's just that teams obsess about these things a lot more than they once did. In any event, crotchety old man that I am, I liked things better the way they used to be. A little painted green dirt never hurt anybody.