Tru Mark Athletic Field Marker's home town, Norfolk, NE 68701, hosted the 2008 Nebraska American Legion Class A American Division Baseball Tournament, August 1st - 5th. A few image highlights can be found in a Snapfish Album.

Tru Mark supplied wind weight tarps for the pitcher's mound and home plate to protect these high traffic areas from nightly irrigation operations. A photo album shows images of the packaging and shipping of the tarps and their applications to the field of play. http://www.trumarkathletics.com/products.aspx?itemid=2413&prodid=11066&pagetitle=Rain+Cover

Tru Mark's General Manager Mark Hall assisted field staff for the duration of tournament play. Duties included striping all foul lines, coaches boxes, base path, and the home plate area using the SwitchBack Ground Boss paint. The field was painted on July 31st and again for the championship series August 5th.

Additional field operation tasks included cleaning the bases with TrailBlazer Solar Wash twice for the two sets of bases and rinsing with water and cleaning with a wire brush between each game. Solar Trail did an excellent job of removing the dirt build-up and restoring the new look for the bases. The pitcher's mound, plate and bases were sprayed with aerosol white chalk between games to further enhance that professional field appearance. Six cans of aerosol chalk were used for the tournament.

Tru Mark provided and applied Diamond Pro Mound and Home Plate Clay between each game. The clay was mixed with a small amount of water between games which provided a superb packing material to speed up field turnover. Four 50 pound bags were used for the 15 games played. As the games progress fewer amounts of clay applications were needed. The mound had originally been prepared in the spring with clay bricks so there was an excellent base to work with.

During the turnover of each game the field was dragged with a motorized unit and hand dragged with brooms around the edges and along the baselines. Home plate and first base line were chalked for each game and third base ever other game. The field was briefly watered with an inground sprinkler system and by hand for the pitcher's mound, home plate and base paths.

A team of 4-5 were used to prepare the field for play in under 20 minutes, typically in under 18 minutes. A Kubota RTV 900 was provided by Dinkel Implement for the duration of the tournament which hauled all the rakes, brooms, tamp, bases, chalker, chalk, 5-gallon pails of clay, aerosol chalk, and string line. This unit was a real time saver and minimized compaction on the field.