BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : DODGERS : Replacement Grass Goes on Road

The Sod Squad, which is very much alive--even though the original grass has died--will again line the front of the Dodger dugout with strips of Kentucky rye-bluegrass sod tonight when they begin a three-game series at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, which has artificial turf.

The old sod--which the Dodgers walked on sporadically while playing six games on their last trip--is credited for the team’s finally being able to win on the fake stuff. Without sod, the Dodgers’ record is 0-9 on artificial turf. With the sod, they are 4-2.

So when the team returned home, they gave the sorry-looking sod to Al Meyers, the Dodger Stadium groundskeeper, and asked him to try to revive it.

“I looked at it and thought, ‘I sure hope I can,’ ” said Meyers, who finally had to give up on it.

He called Pacific Sod in Camarillo, which donated three strips of state-of-the art sod.

“It’s part of the remains of the same grass that they are using at (the Silverdome) in Detroit this weekend for the soccer tournament,” Meyers said. “It will be the first time they use real grass indoors.”

The grass is a basic blue-rye mix with organic matter, instead of soil, supporting the root system.