Coors Field’s upgraded playing surface awaits

The green, green grass of home awaits the Rockies at Coors Field. Mark Razum and his crew made sure of that.

A sixth-month rebuild of the playing surface at Coors was finished in March in preparation for the scheduled home opener last Friday. The coronavirus pandemic wiped out that game, and there is no telling when baseball will return. But when it does, the infield will be smooth and the outfield an emeraldgreen carpet.

“We started enriching the nutrients to the grass a few weeks ago, to be more aggressive and give the roots a jump start, so the grass is growing like crazy right now,” said “Raz,” who has been the head groundskeeper at

Coors Field since October 1994, seven months before the ballpark hosted its first game. “Right now, it’s kind of tough to keep up with the grass, to tell you the truth, because it’s growing so fast. We would have been ready for opening day, no question. Now we’re just maintaining it until we get to play baseball again.”

Fans and players might never have noticed, but the playing surface at Coors was in need of an upgrade. This wasn’t about cosmetic changes. It was about the basics.

“We rebuilt the whole field from the ground up, basically,” Razum said. “It was a pretty substantial endeavor.”

During the offseason, a new boiler system was installed at Coors Field. In conjunction with

that project, a new heating system was installed underneath the playing field.

“The old system — one that had been there for the past 25 years, ever since Coors was first built — was an electric-grid system,” Razum said. “Now we’ve upgraded it to a hydronic heating system, where you pass hot water through the tubing underneath. That’s what heats the soil.

“It’s a huge upgrade, and it’s going to save us a lot in energy consumption and be much more efficient than the old electric grid.”

The project’s first step was to remove the old turf and then excavating 1K feet of dirt and sand from the playing surface to reach the gravel base.

“Then we started building it all up again,” Razum said. “We put the heat tubing down below the base surface, then built it up with the gravel, then we added 10 inches of sand above that, and then the sod lays on top of all of that. It was a big undertaking.” How big?

• More than 30 miles of heating tubing was installed.

• 2,700 tons of base gravel was laid down.

• 4,500 tons of root-zone sand was spread over the gravel.

• 250 tons of Colorado sand and clay was installed in the infield.

• Five tons of dense clay was used to shape a new pitching mound.

• More than 2.66 acres of Kentucky bluegrass sod were installed for a ballpark that boasts the biggest outfield in the majors.

Opening day at Coors Field usually allows Razum to showcase the stage he’s helped create for the Rockies and their fans. For now, that experience is on indefinite hold.

“At times, I’m going a little bit nutso,” Razum said. “Without a schedule and without knowing exactly what’s in front of us, we are just maintaining the grass as best we can. So it’s been kind of strange being at home, but my own lawn is doing much better than it has in previous years.