Everyone Is Hopping Mad Over Poor Field Conditions

Randy Velarde’s routine grounder in the bottom of the 13th inning Monday night took a wild hop over Chicago White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen’s head, allowing the winning run to score in the Angels’ 9-8 victory. And minutes later, Guillen was hopping mad.

“I did everything I could to field it,” Guillen said, “but it’s hard to play a big league game when the field is not in big league shape.”

Angel President Tony Tavares showed little sympathy for Guillen, but he could empathize with the shortstop.

“I would like to tell you I’m sorry for what happened to the White Sox, but I’m not,” Tavares said. “But I totally agree with [Guillen]. We have some problems here. The field is in awful shape.”

Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina has thought this for years, but it seems to take a play like the one Monday night, when a game in Anaheim Stadium is decided by a bad hop, for the issue to move from the back burner to the front.

“Every time other infielders come here and they get on second base, they look at me, throw up their hands and say, ‘What’s up with this field?’ ” DiSarcina said.

“This is my fifth year here, and I’ve [complained] about it, and after three years I got tired of complaining. I just said, ‘I’m not going to worry about it. I’m not going to use it as an excuse.’ ”

The problem, DiSarcina said, is that the infield dirt is inconsistent. It’s soft in certain areas and firm in others. The top layer is often softer, especially in later innings, but a hard layer of dirt an inch or two beneath the surface can still produce vicious hops.

“I’m no groundskeeper or landscaping expert, but I know when I come from Kansas City to this field, there’s an eye-popping difference,” DiSarcina said. “That’s why you see guys back up on ground balls. Their aggressiveness is taken away because they’re not going to get a true bounce. It makes infielders unsure of themselves.”

This much, Tavares is sure of: The problem with the playing surface, a common thread among Disney Sports Enterprises teams, is being addressed.

Tavares, who has overseen ice improvements at the Pond, considered one of the NHL’s worst playing surfaces, said he has approved a request by General Manager Bill Bavasi to hire a groundskeeping consultant, possibly world-renowned turf specialist George Toma.

The city of Anaheim is responsible for field maintenance and upkeep and has its own grounds-keeping staff, but Tavares said the consultant’s fee would come out of the Angels’ budget.

“The city has made efforts to correct it, but all I know is we will do whatever it takes to get the field in better condition,” Tavares said. “We can’t do much until October, when we’re in charge of the stadium, so it would be difficult to just rip out the infield and start over.

“Last year the Angels hired some experts and thought they had a solution, but for whatever reason the field was fine last year and it’s not this year. There are some great fields out there, and our intention is to find out why.”

DiSarcina said Kansas City’s field, a Toma creation, is the best he has played on in all of organized baseball, and Angel players have heard that Toma will be hired to improve the field.

“But I don’t know if we should do that now,” Velarde said, “because that ball might not have taken that hop on his infield.”

But as glad as DiSarcina was to pull out the victory Monday night, the game’s conclusion left a bad taste in his mouth.

“You don’t want games to end like that, because it could be that way for us,” he said. “The field shouldn’t determine a game. It’s great that we won, but if we had lost on a play like that, we’d be up in arms about it too.”