Behind the grass: Baseball to soccer transition no easy feat at Legends Field in KCK

Tyler Stelter had no time to celebrate when the Kansas City Monarchs beat the Winnipeg Goldeyes 9-8 with a walk-off win Sunday at Legends Field.

In fact, the moment that the game ended, Legends Field’s head groundskeeper’s work had begun. In less than 72 hours, Stelter’s job was to lead a team of workers to convert a baseball field that had been trudged, stomped and slid upon for six straight days into a shiny, undisturbed, picturesque soccer pitch for a KC NWSL match against Orlando Pride on Wednesday.

As Sunday brought the bats, Monday brought the bulldozers. Construction noises rang throughout Legends Field as Stelter’s team upended the dirt-covered base areas in favor of natural turf sod. The manpower was fairly large for such an operation not many see; it’s not as if the Monarchs or NWSL is checking by the hour to make sure everything is running smoothly. The field just better be right on game day.

Being anonymous isn’t a bad thing, Stelter says. In his line of work, it’s actually preferred.

“I keep telling my guys we are the offensive line,” Stelter said. “If nobody knows who the hell you are, you’re doing something right.”

Stelter, who graduated from Kansas State in 2019 with a degree in sports turf management, started his gig in March, just in time for for the Monarchs’ rebrand from the T-Bones and a new tenant in KC NWSL. As an admitted “baseball guy” at heart, the news made his experience with the Boston Red Sox in 2018 come in handy.

Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play, has been repurposed over the years for the likes of soccer, football, hockey and even a ski and snowboarding competition. There’s probably no snow sports coming to Legends Field anytime soon, but there was to be soccer, and Stelter had to find bodies to help him — both through brains and through brawn.

First was the manpower — Legends Field contracts Midwest Laser Leveling out of Topeka for all of its transitions. Then came the advice, which Stelter sought from acquaintances in Boston and Tacoma, Washington, who host minor-league baseball’s Tacoma Rainiers and NWSL’s OL Reign soccer team at Cheney Stadium. Since Legends Field made its first field switch for a KC NWSL match on May 3, the crew has begun to get the hang of it. If all goes well and there are no mishaps (miscalculations, weather conditions, etc;), the process can be completed in about 24 hours.

“You respect how much work goes into it behind the scenes,” Stelter said. “Soccer will come in here ready to play a game at 1 o’clock and have no idea what we did the last few days. They just come in and go, ‘Oh, there’s a soccer field here,’ which is great, and that’s the way we like it.”

The baseball-to-soccer transition is much easier than vice versa, Stelter says. That process entails merely tearing out the baseball parts while laying down sod and watering it, along with other details like field dimensions, placement of removable bleachers on the field and the hanging of NWSL-specific signage. Still, it’s a tight squeeze here: Legends Field’s soccer dimensions are 110 yards by 70 yards, the smallest pitch size allowed by league rules. Corner kicks are often awkward and against the outfield wall on one end; run-ups can switch surfaces from dirt to grass mid-stride on the other.

Baseball requires more attention to detail, with much time devoted to what Stelter thinks is the most annoying part of the makeover: the mound. When there’s a soccer-to-baseball transition, the soccer sod is removed and the surface gets leveled to flawless degrees, especially at the points where dirt and grass meet. Moisture levels in the dirt need to be properly maintained — perfect levels are achieved when a cleat doesn’t take out any extra chunks of the ground.

But all priorities pale in comparison to the mound.

“It’s really the focal point of the entire game,” Stelter said. “Having to take out that entire clay and then put it right back down, it has to be to-the-inch, to-the-centimeter perfect down the slope, to where you’re effectively pitching on it and you also meet regulations. If we’re off, then we get in trouble by the association. ... That is 100% the most tedious thing.”

How receptive have the players been to field conditions? There’s mixed feelings, Stelter said.

There haven’t been any major criticisms from either party thus far, but baseball interests here wish the infield — all grass, save the mound and small dirt areas around the bases — had a more standard look and feel, as ground balls don’t play the same on grass. Stelter wishes he could pull that off but said he can’t with the resources available. Soccer, meanwhile, he called “phenomenal” to work with.

The Monarchs, in a team statement, remarked on the uniqueness of the field conditions and appreciated Stelter and Midwest Laser Leveling’s work.

“On behalf of the Monarchs we can add that it is a tremendous undertaking to take a natural grass playing field from baseball to soccer or vice versa,” the statement read. “But to do it 17 times in a very limited time frame is a phenomenal achievement. Especially if weather comes into play.

“The initial impression of playing on a grass infield is new to many ballplayers and when the visiting teams come into the ballpark for the first time they are always a bit surprised — you don’t see that very often.”

Perhaps the final touch of detail is that each team has a specifically tailored clubhouse to call its own, and with the baseball team recently re-branded and soccer just moving in, they’re both freshly designed. The Monarchs’ clubhouse (and soccer visitors’) is decorated in a crimson-and-navy scheme, while the KC NWSL clubhouse (and baseball visitors’) is white and teal.

With two occupants in a stadium meant for only one of their sports, Legends Field is a unique and complicated home.

But it is home.

“We’ve got two teams here that are both professional athletes,” Stetler said. “We want them to both feel like they have a home stadium, even if it is a little unorthodox. When it comes down to it, if the grass is flat and it’s cut down and moves the ball well on it, there’s really not a lot to be upset about.”

This story was originally published June 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.