[HN Gopher] Western Pennsylvania dirt is used in the infields of...
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Western Pennsylvania dirt is used in the infields of most MLB
stadiums (2017)
Author : goles
Score : 79 points
Date : 2024-06-08 18:12 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.post-gazette.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.post-gazette.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/vUQm4
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180730152634/https://www.post-...
| CSMastermind wrote:
| It's weird that they don't talk about what they're doing that
| supposedly makes the soil so special. They mention that once they
| installed the soil at the Pirates stadium (about 2 hours away
| from where it's manufactured) the number of rain delays dropped.
| If it were a property of the local soil you'd assume the existing
| soil in the pirates stadium would already have it. I can't
| believe the clay composition differs that much on a two hour
| drive.
|
| Instead I'm guessing it has something to do with how they process
| it?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Pennsylvania is a geologically diverse state. The soil can
| definitely vary across short distances.
| tadfisher wrote:
| Yes, and Western PA has the Poconos mountain chain, so
| various geologic strata are exposed in close proximity.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Poconos are actually eastern PA. There are also mountains
| in western PA, but I don't know their names without looking
| it up.
| 5555624 wrote:
| The Allegheny Mountains are in western Pennsylvania.
| 5555624 wrote:
| The Poconos are in northeastern Pennsylvania.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Soil map https://free-printablemap.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/10/gen...
| nubinetwork wrote:
| > It's weird that they don't talk about what they're doing that
| supposedly makes the soil so special.
|
| That would be like a bakery asking McDonald's how much sugar
| they put in their buns. If everyone could do it, they'd be out
| of business.
| affinepplan wrote:
| the sugar content of a McDonald's bun is public knowledge
|
| Their competitive advantage has nothing to do (or at least
| extremely little) with recipe trade secrets. Any professional
| test kitchen could reproduce any McDonald's item within weeks
| seanw444 wrote:
| Exactly. McDonald's not-so-secret secret recipe is immense
| scale.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| This video may be of interest to you:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6AUq3BSoLY
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Soil conditions can definitely vary wildly within 100 miles,
| and Pennsylvania goes from coast to river valley to mountains
| in much less distance.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| New Zealand is a major milk exporter, some countries pay a
| premium for our milk.
|
| And yet the milk we locals buy in the supermarket (which I am
| sure is the same as our exports) is milk that has been divided
| into its core elements (fat sugar protein) and the recombined
| in a certain ratio.
|
| New Zealand milk does not come from a cow, and I would think PA
| dirt baseball fields do not come from the ground, but rather PA
| has the right raw ingredients at hand.
|
| On a side now people here pay a premium for "raw milk"
| (unpasteurised straight from a cow).
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Related, all the dirt used to add texture to new MLB baseballs
| are from a riverbank somewhere in New Jersey, near Palmyra
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/sports/baseball/baseball-...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_Rubbing_Mud
| jihadjihad wrote:
| That's crazy, I've never heard of that before, and I've watched
| plenty of baseball. They just straight up rub the balls in mud,
| before every game? And just rinse them and they're good to go?
| ciabattabread wrote:
| And that section of the Delaware River is not known for its
| water quality.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Well, technically it is, it's just not good water quality!
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Pretty much! Here's a video of it in action (and the mud
| collection): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flrWvnhPmng
|
| Considering over 1,140,000 (2019 figures[0]) balls get used
| through the season (not even including practice and playoff
| balls), it's an astounding amount of mud rubbing action.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1171328/2019/08/29/what-
| you...
| legitster wrote:
| Breaking in balls for professional sports is a whole thing.
|
| Brand new equipment out of the box sucks, but if you let
| equipment managers bring out old balls than there is going to
| be wild variations between every different ball used. So
| having a consistent break-in process is pretty important.
|
| You should see the kind of shenanigans they do in the
| football world:
| https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4136154/2023/01/31/nfl-
| kick...
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Why does he have to make up a story about why hes getting the
| mud. Is he not allowed to be taking mud from a public place and
| reselling it, since that's what it sounds like hes doing.
| tyree731 wrote:
| Since the location of where the mud is gathered is considered
| a secret, I imagine it's more about giving people a different
| reason as to why he's there.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Probably a bit of both.
|
| Assuming the oft-cited Delaware River and Palmyra
| references are genuine, no, Blackburne Rubbing Mud does not
| own any public property in Palmyra. Blackburne's registered
| address is 60 miles away. There's about a mile of
| riverfront on a public park, an industrial warehouse, and
| some condos.
|
| He's stealing the mud from public property. I'm sure that
| he'd be arrested if he showed up with an excavator and
| tried to start a gravel pit on a nature trail, but, it
| turns out, you can boast on national media about taking
| dirt from a public park if you only take a couple hundred
| pounds of it a year and do it sneakily, two bucketfuls at a
| time.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| There are so many plausible arrangement for this to be
| legal without his main company owning the riverfront
| property that and it's absurd for you to think you've
| uncovered a scam in plain sight of a beloved and well
| known process .
| FL410 wrote:
| This is neat. First I heard of it was this last weekend, when
| they mentioned during the Phillies/Mets game in London that the
| dirt had been shipped in from here as well.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| TFA is behind a paywall, so I don't know if this was mentioned.
|
| I've read that the Romans used to import arena sand from a
| certain area in North Africa because it was somehow better than
| the local sand. I think it was also used in upscale athletic
| facilities as well.
| tfryman wrote:
| https://archive.is/20220515135638/https://www.post-gazette.c...
| FredPret wrote:
| Worth a look at the article just to get an eyeful of the man's
| "older computer". It's absolutely prehistoric and still in use.
|
| I love that.
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(page generated 2024-06-10 23:01 UTC)