There is a magic elixir that makes Pinckney Field look the way it does.

“I don’t think you could play baseball without water,” Falcon Park head groundskeeper Brian Rhodes said.

The ingredients are simple.

Two hydrogen atoms with their single electrons covalently bonded with a single oxygen atom with its six combinable electrons.

The blood of baseball, H20.

What makes the grass grow

If you ask a US Marine you get one answer, but water keeps everything flowing at Falcon Park.

“It is all moisture management,” Rhodes said. “There is fertilizer and weed killer, but I can’t stress enough that handling the moisture is so important.”

Unique to this universe - that we know of - water does not act and react like anything else. 

Fresh water is tasteless, transparent and colorless - unique properties in themselves - and has the second highest specific heat capacity on Earth to go along with a very high heat of vaporization. Water is good at absorbing and holding heat without evaporating. According to Josh Willis, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, oceans absorb one thousand times more heat than the atmosphere (air) while holding 80 to 90 percent of global warming heat.

The specific enthalpy of fusion of water is also second highest on the planet next to ammonia. In other words, once water freezes it thaws very slowly.

Furthermore, the liquid is vital to the photosynthesis that each and every single blade of grass on Pinckney Field is constantly doing.

Photosynthesis is where a plant uses the energy of the sun to split off the hydrogen atoms in water molecules and combines them with carbon dioxide, absorbed from the air or ground, to create a form of glucose (sugar) that is used by the plant for energy. The plant expels the leftover oxygen from the former water molecule. Plants do not actually need the soil to grow, think of the sunflower seed experiment on a wet paper towel in grade school, only water, air, and sunlight are required. It is a process that has been going on for millions of year and made Earth's atmosphere breathable.

All year round

The New York-Penn League season is a concentrated one.

Twelve frantic weeks with about 35 home games in Auburn, but the maintenance of Pinckney Field is a 12-month affair.

“In January it is just keeping the mound tarp on and the plate tarp on and letting the snow do its thing,” Rhodes said.

The small ice crystals provide the soil with a constant water source as the irrigation system is cleared the preceding fall. Despite how much life water gives to nature H20 can destroy as well.

Water expands when it cools and freezes. The density (concentration of water molecules in a given space) of water drops when it freezes. The reason why ice floats in a soda is that ice (water in the solid state) has more empty space between the water molecules than the space between the molecules in liquid water. Nearly all other compounds compress when they go from liquid to solid. If there is water in a Falcon Park irrigation pipe in the winter it could burst as the water explands.

“All of the pipes in the irrigation system have to have the water blown out. If it freezes it will ruin it. The same with the clubhouses,” Rhodes said making a small burst with both of his fists.

During the spring Rhodes and his crew of about half a dozen strive to find the right balance of water with the ground thawing and spring rains. The summer consists of maintenance with hoses while the fall means winterization and evacuating pipes of water.

From daybreak to first pitch

During the summer, the results of Rhodes and the Crew playing water’s chemical game are on display.

There are a lot of childhood memories that are made when the greens and browns are seen for the first time.

Everyday at 9 a.m. Rhodes gets to the ballpark.

The foul ground grass areas in front of the dugouts, which are out of the reach of the sprinkler system, get watered. The infield itself gets an initial hose down, (remember, it is all about “moisture control”) and the outfield gets its daily trim.

All of that takes a few hours.

By 1 p.m. all of nature has had its drink and the players are out in the field running and stretching.

Rhodes and the half dozen crew members set up screens for the pitcher, first base, and in the short outfield, carpets, and the batting cage in about 15 minutes.

Both teams get in swings and throws, but everything breaks around 6 p.m.

In only an hour before first pitch the crew has to put away screens, roll carpets, take out practice bases, drag the infield, rake areas that can’t be dragged, chalk the boxes and basepaths, clean the plate, clean the rubber, and replace the game bases.

Finally, three guys combine to give the field the hose again.

“The dirt always has to stay wet,” said Rhodes who worked closely with Syracuse Chiefs head groundskeeper John Stewart to perfect his own hold on the craft. “(Without daily watering) there would be dust everywhere. The main thing it does is keep the dust down.”

By game time the manicure is complete.

“I have a passion for it. Moisture management. I can’t say it enough,” Rhodes said.

The hero, H20.