How Advancements in Synthetic Turf Systems and Natural Fields Benefit Baseball

Paul Steinbach Headshot
Bananas Grayson Stadium
Photo of the Savannah Bananas’ Grayson Stadium courtesy of AstroTurf

As the name would suggest, Scotts Miracle-Gro Athletic Complex at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., is the all-natural home to the Division III school’s baseball and softball facilities. And that’s just fine with assistant baseball coach John Casey, even though Casey had led a conversion from grass to synthetic turf at the end of his 38 seasons as head coach at his alma mater, Tufts University — 55 miles to the north in Medford, Mass.

He left to join his son’s staff at J&W before ever coaching a game on the wall-to-wall turf surface at Sol Gittleman Park, which opened at Tufts in 2023. That said, Casey, the current chair of the American Baseball Coaches Association Board of Directors, a past ABCA president (2016) and an ABCA Hall of Fame inductee (2020) — has seen every possible playing field configuration imaginable while amassing 765 career victories.

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