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2018 Multi-Purpose Field of the Year 2018 Baseball Field of the Year
Multi-Purpose Field of the Year City of Rockwall Parks and Recreation Leon Tuttle Athletic Complex Submitted by: Travis Sales, MCPTM BACKGROUND The City of Rockwall Parks and Recreation Department is excited to submit Leon Tuttle Athletic Complex for “Baseball Field of the Year”. This will be the first submittal for the City of Rockwall for a sports field of the year award. The complex was under construction in 1984 and was built on native land which is a combination of black land prairie clay, slate and rock. The turf is a combination of Common Bermuda which was the original turf and through renovations over the last 30 years and there is now a blend of 419, Mid-Iron and Tif-Tuf. Concessions and restrooms were added in 1986 and built in-house. The original complex had no lighting and a lighting was installed in 1999 and all fields have lighting now. The original irrigation system which was a hydraulic system and was in full operation until 2000 at which time the Park Division converted the valves only to electric and that is how it operates today. The facility in 2018 (January to July) has hosted 9 tournaments consisting of 1,200 players and 1600 league games consisting of 104 teams. This facility is the only game facility, but the only practice facility in Rockwall Parks and Recreation. This facility has scheduled play on it seven days a week from 8am until 11pm with either practices or games which leaves little to no recovery time. This challenges us to run our turf maintenance programs concurrently with play except for a four week period in December. The first renovations took place in the mid 1990’s by a sports field contractor which included turf and field leveling. Full renovations of all fields took place in November 2017 with Park Staff only, including myself and one athletic field technician. Fields were leveled, 50 tons of clay Diamond Pro Infield Clay was installed, 50 tons of Pro Choice Infield Conditioner was installed, new base anchors, new home plates, new pitching rubbers, new portable pitching mounds, new outfield fence safety cap, and new dayglo painted outfield poles.