AUBURN, Ala. – When the Los Angeles Dodgers recorded the final out the 2020 World Series, they celebrated on a playing surface developed and tested at Auburn University.
The game was played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, but the turf got its start at Auburn University's Sports Surface Field Laboratory, near the intersection of South College Street and Shug Jordan Parkway.
"The Texas Rangers were building a brand new stadium that would also be an entertainment venue," said Eric Kleypas, Auburn Athletics' director of turf and landscape services. "They didn't know if natural grass could survive in the stadium."
That's because the field at the Rangers' new ballpark is 58 feet below street level and the stadium's roof is higher than other stadiums with retractable roofs, limiting the prospects of growing quality grass that would last for a six-month baseball season with 81 home games.
"They wanted to see if you could develop an artificial turf system that played like natural grass," Kleypas said. "Could we get a true hop out of an artificial turf field?"
Enter Dr. Philipe Aldahir, who earned his doctorate from Auburn University and was working as the director of turf and innovation for Shaw Sports Turf.
"One luxury we have at Auburn having a turfgrass program is that we can answer research here on campus," Kleypas said. "If there's a new turf variety or a new product we want to look at it, instead of using a field as a guinea pig, we can research it here and have real data to show if that product works or not."
When Aldahir was a graduate student under Dr. Scott McElroy, he conducted a study on Bermuda grass shade tolerance varieties and football traffic.
In 2017, just as the Rangers were designing their stadium, Aldahir returned to Auburn's lab to try to create an artificial surface that more closely resembled the real thing.
"Can we quantify data to show why natural grass is preferred, and then use that data to mimic the results on artificial turf?" Kleypas said, summarizing the project.
How the playing surface approximated the roll and hop of natural grass was only part of the equation. The other part was the toll that artificial surfaces can take on athletes. That's where kinesiology professor Dr. Wendi Weimar came in.
"It's been pretty cool," said Weimar, who directs Auburn University's Sport Biomechanics Lab. "We've been doing projects out there looking at the influence of different artificial surfaces on the body. One of my doctoral students did their dissertation looking at those different surfaces."
Over an 18-month span, Jamie Reed, the Texas Rangers' senior director of medical operations, visited Auburn eight times.
"It was a fascinating experience," said Reed, occasionally accompanied by the Rangers' minor league director and members of the major league coaching staff. "I tried to take somebody different every time I went there to get their thoughts, to be sure I wasn't biased in what I was seeing and feeling."
By mixing pads, slit film and monofilament fibers and infills, Shaw Sports Turf developed the B1K natural system. The Geofill infill – what is to artificial surfaces what thatch is to natural grass –is made of coconut husks and fibers.The synthetic turf at Globe Life Field was developed and tested at Auburn University
"Through the data collected, Shaw was able to say, 'Here's what a natural grass field plays like. Here are the metrics,'" Kleypas said. "'Here's an artificial turf system that most closely mimics that natural grass field.'"
The Rangers were sold, installing the surface for the stadium's inaugural season in 2020.
"It was a great experience and what we ended up with is a truly fantastic product," Reed said. "Our infielders absolutely loved it, they said it was such a true roll, consistent speeds, and our outfielders really liked it too. They said it felt like grass and the hops were like grass."
Most importantly for Reed and the Rangers, the players, especially outfielders, preferred their home turf to other artificial surfaces that led to lower back tightness and soreness in hamstrings and patellar tendons.
"We didn't have any cases of that this year," Reed said after the 2020 season. "It was really a remarkable feat to get through this."
After the Rangers' experience with Auburn, more MLB teams have contacted Weimar in the kinesiology department, trying to find the right surface for their stadiums.
"It's been really very exciting and interesting to be a part of all of that," she said. "It's started a whole line of research for us where we're really looking at the influence of how the body responds to different surfaces and different shoes on different surfaces. It's been a lot of fun."
When the pandemic altered the 2020 season, Major League Baseball chose to play its Fall Classic at a neutral site, putting Auburn University research on an unexpected worldwide stage.
It's only fitting that the Auburn baseball team begins its 2022 season on a playing surface that got its start down the road from Plainsman Park.
"There's no doubt that Auburn influenced Shaw Turf and ultimately the Texas Rangers in going with this decision and it's absolutely no looking back," Reed said. "We wouldn't hesitate to do it again."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer