Through The Sandglass

Arenaceous sporting trivia - the baseball World Series

 

My daughter and her grandfather, both in Philadelphia, will probably, to put it mildly, have less than kind words for me when they see this post. For the Phillies (last year's champions) were beaten in the baseball World Series last night by the New York Yankees - of all teams, it had to be the Yankees (for non-North American readers, I have appended some brief explanatory notes at the end of the post). Angst, tears, and rage in Philadelphia, exuberant celebration in New York. But, for Through the Sandglass, it's just another opportunity, to point out the ubiquity of my topic - in the continuing tradition of my daughter's Simpsons challenge.  

For a start, like many sporting surfaces, the construction of a world-class baseball field relies on first-class sand. The iconic diamond, its grass and its surrounding "dirt," are made from specialty materials. Go to the website of the Beam Clay company of Great Meadows, New Jersey ("Your 'one-stop source' for America's baseball and sports turf surfaces and supplies!") and you will be bewildered by the choice of over 200 products for the construction, care, and maintenance of your dream infield - for example, their "Premium infield mix":

Made from uniform orange sand and red Beam Clay® with our special binding process that reduces wind and water erosion. Doesn’t separate and blow away! Doesn’t become dusty in stadiums! With proper maintenance, provides firm traction without tracking, good drainage while retaining playing moisture, distinctive reddish/orange color, works up readily, no separation of ingredients, long lasting, safe to slide on - for safe, attractive, consistent professional quality baseball diamonds.

The nature and performance of the materials used for the batter's and catcher's boxes are particularly important, but as in the action of a game, the pitcher's mound has to be a focus of attention. A good history of the pitcher's mound and how to construct one can be found here; the ingredients and recipes vary little - although the climatic environment of the stadium is important. This particular summary is from http://www.baseball-almanac.com/:

The mix used to build the pitcher's landing area (and often the batter's box and catcher's box) should have a significant concentration of clay to provide the necessary stability to resist degradation from increased traffic. A good material will be about 40% sand, 20% silt, and 40% clay. If necessary, you can mix individual components together. Just be sure that individual components are evenly distributed throughout the material.

     A quality infield material will have a lower concentration of clay than the pitcher's mound. The infield skin should be moist and firm, not hard and baked dry. To achieve firmness, an infield mix should not be too sandy. An infield mix with greater than 75% sand causes unstable footing for ballplayers and increases infield skin maintenance problems. A sandy infield will create low spots more quickly and is more likely to create lips at the infield skin/turf interface. Ideally, the infield mix should be between 50% and 75% sand and 25% to 50% clay and silt. A combination that has been successfully used is a 60% sand, 20% silt, 20% clay base mix (sandy clay loam to sandy loam). The silt and clay give the mix firmness. If the mix contains too much silt and clay, compaction and hardness become a problem.

So, a skilful (and well-paid) pitcher can stride out to his patch with confidence that its consistency will provide a reliable foundation for his art. And, in the case of Mariano Rivera ("Mo"), who finished off the Phillies last night and has been called "the best closer in the history of the game," his appearance on the field - if the game is in New York - is accompanied by a loud rendition of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" - "we're off to never-never land." It is said that this is by no means Mo's favourite song, but that it is played on his entry because when he comes into a game, you can pretty much put it to bed. If you wish, you can see a video of this from last night's game at http://www.wikio.com/video/1925785.

And then, of course, there's sand lot baseball. And plastic baseball-shaped bottles that can be filled with coloured sand - but one example of a wide range of such things; I couldn't possibly comment on their artistic merit - but I suspect that Andrew Clemens will not be rolling in his grave..... 

 

Notes for non-American readers:

1. The "World Series" has been widely derided by non-North Americans as being no such thing, since no countries other than the USA and Canada can compete for it. In order to combat such accusations of sporting arrogance, it has often been declared that the name originates from the original sponsorship of the championship by the newspaper, The New York World, early in the last century. Indeed, my (American) wife firmly corrected me to this effect a long time ago. But it's a myth - the "World Series" is, and always has been, exactly that (see Snopes). Not that I would in any way revert to my earlier derisive remarks ..... Always remember that the other life of Steve Gould, the extraordinary and revered evolutionary biologist and writer, was as a devoted and passionate baseball fan - of the Yankees. 
2. I would no more attempt to explain baseball to non-Americans than I would cricket to baseball fans (both are challenges equivalent, in Shakespeare's words, to "numbering the sands and drinking the oceans dry.") Suffice it to say that both games are very much like the classic description of a soldier's life - long periods of boredom interrupted by brief moments of terror (well, generally not exactly terror, but action, something to actually engage the senses and the emotions).
3. In the later stages of a game, the starting pitcher is often replaced by a specialist finisher - a "closer" like Mariano Rivera.
4. A baseball signed by Mo and with the words "Enter Sandman" can be purchased from http://www.mlbfansite.com/ for a mere $399.99 (knocked down, so to speak, from the original price of $501.86).
5. Herewith, from http://www.baseball-almanac.com/stadium/baseball_field_construction.shtml, a simple illustration of the layout of the diamond and the infield. From now on, you're on your own.
   
   
   
   
   

Too much, too little, and often in the wrong place

 

It rose out of the omnipresent sand of a natural island, and there remains a thin layer of the ocher substance almost everywhere: on the canopied grandstands, on the brilliantly lighted hotel at the edge of the track, on the seats and in just about every corner of the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.

So went the start of a New York Times article on yesterday's finale to the Formula One Grand Prix season. Small armies of workers were sweeping the sand right up to the last minute and yet, as The Walrus and The Carpenter observed, it's essentially an impossible task. Holding an extravaganza of highly sophisticated but delicate technology in this kind of environment brings many challenges. As the article went on to comment

 It may play havoc with the engines of the cars and it will change the grip, lap by lap, for the drivers, even affect the lenses and other camera mechanisms belonging to the hundreds of photographers and journalists who will document the final race

For races in neighbouring Bahrain, it's long been a problem, as explained by Red Bull’s technical director Gunther Steiner:

You have to be aware that it can get in to every part of the car. It literally sandblasts the car every time it goes on track and gradually erodes all the surfaces and the cooling fins on the radiators.

Unique measures are taken to protect exposed suspension and other parts of the cars, and specially designed air filters have to be used. And then there's the problem with grip and tyre selection - after all, a motor race in which the drivers have to go slowly in order to stay on the track - and avoid whole sections of it because it's covered in sand - detracts somewhat from the sporting attraction. David Coulthard, the now-retired driver, was quoted before the race as saying

It does seem to be very sandy. When I followed a car the amount of stuff coming out the back was incredible. What that does is two things: one, it makes the driver pay the price if he goes a bit off line, which is good because it favours ability, but it is also makes people not want to take the risk in overtaking. Sand on your tyre takes a good lap to be cleared out.

And so it proved. It was largely a risk-avoidance race with drivers clearly sticking very closely to a single driving "line," conspicuously steering clear of the rest of the track - and often running into problems when they didn't. Grains of sand influencing a sporting spectacle and, as The Times Online concluded, "Whoever wins the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday will be fêted in a nation that can afford to buy its heroes — but the victorious driver might feel his name is not written in history, but in the sand."

But if the sport was less than inspiring, the setting made up for it. This was the inaugural race at Abu Dhabi's latest example of construction extravagance. Ras Island, just down the coast from the preposterous artificial island developments of Dubai, was but a sandy expanse a mere 30 months ago (see the Google Earth image at left of the image at the head of this post). It hardly seems to have been a natural island, but rather 25 square kilometers of coastal desert, sandbanks, and sabhka (salt flats) carved out and isolated from the mainland by manmade waterways. After several tens of billions of dollars, and the efforts of tens of thousands of workers, things have changed. The image below is of the hotel complex across the track (as night falls, as it did for the Grand Prix, the whole thing glows in a succession of changing colours) and at the right in the image at the top is the way the whole place will look when finished.

 

The strange red object in the centre of the header image is "Ferrari World," the largest indoor theme park on the planet, "like a megalomaniac’s pleasure dome" in the words of the NYT. Yas Island will boast  20 hotels, 3 theme parks, a "Super Regional mall", golf courses, several marinas, and commercial and residential developments. You can read the full specs at the developer's website, but in case you don't here's a sampling of the exuberance on this "island of dreams":

There will be a Super Regional Mall that will house famous retail brands from
around the world in over 500 stores and 4 floors including lifestyle, fashion &
boutiques.
• There will also be room for a complete town centre concept, contained in a
number of adjacent buildings and built under a 88,100m2 roof
• The Yas Mall will have one of the largest free standing roofs in the world,
showcasing 296,000m2 of the world’s best retail space
• Adjoining the Yas Mall will be will be Abu Dhabi’s first Multi-purpose Retail
Park (100,000m2)
• Three major department stores will be accommodated.
• A large hypermarket covering an area of 17,000 m2

 What I have not been able to determine is how much concrete goes into this monster (one hotel used 45,000 cubic metres of it, the racetrack 225,000) or, indeed, where all the sand came from for that concrete; presumably, as in neighbouring Dubai, local sources of non-desert sand were used (the windblown stuff being too rounded and smooth for good concrete), and the local natural sand budgets consequently profoundly changed. But it's not just the natural sand budgets. Although sand prices around the world have fallen during the economic crisis, they peaked in 2007 at more than $40 per ton, and sand supplies were becoming difficult. The Economist recently ran an article (pleasingly titled "The hourglass effect") that began:

“LOOKING for sea-sand for reclamation project in Singapore. Prompt reply is greatly appreciated.” Many such pleas can be found on Alibaba.com, a popular Chinese trading-website. Malaysia banned sand exports as long ago as 1997. Indonesia followed suit in 2007 on environmental and, some say, political grounds. Ever since, it has become harder for Singapore to secure supplies for its booming construction industry and sea-fill plans.

Singapore has turned to Cambodia and then Vietnam for its sand, but both have now banned exports. It seems that Myanmar may be the replacement supplier, so I will see my favourite material propping up, through, of course, western contractors, a loathsome dictatorship. The need is clear for a more widespread development and use of advanced forms of concrete that not only use less sand, but also can be manufactured without the associated emissions. And considering that every man, woman, and child on the planet "consumes" forty times their own weight in concrete every year, the sooner the better.

And finally, still on sand budgets and still in the news, today's Guardian newspaper carries a piece titled "Tide turns again for Cancún in shifting sands row." The 800,000 cubic metres of sand that were used to replace beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma a few years ago lasted only a few months, and the current project is only the latest in a series of failed attempts at beach nourishment.

A huge project to replenish eroded beaches in Mexico's main Caribbean coastal resorts, including Cancún, has been suspended after legal action by environmentalists.

Campaigners claim the $75m (£45m) plan – involving taking 6.2m cubic metres from a sandbank just off Cozumel island, 50 miles from Cancún, to hotel beaches – is based on incomplete assessments.

Critics say dredging the sandbank will alter currents and damage ecosystems, including coral reefs and breeding grounds for species such as the queen conch. They also fear Cozumel will become more vulnerable to hurricanes. "It's absurd. We understand it is necessary to fill out the beaches but it needs to be done without sacrificing other places," said Alejandra Serrano of the Mexican Centre for Environmental Law.

But Rodrigo de la Pena, president of the Hotel Association, criticised the delay: "We cannot sell ourselves as a place of sun and sand, if we don't have the sand."

Alejandra Serrano is right - it's absurd. But then so many things are, including much of what I've just written about .....

Fundraising and madness in the desert - the Marathon des Sables

It's billed as the toughest footrace one earth, a reputation difficult to dispute - lunacy in a good cause. The 24th Marathon des Sables has just finished in the Moroccan Sahara south of the town of Ouarzazate (at least, I believe everyone who was going to finish has finished). The race, equivalent to five and a half normal marathons, covers 240 kilometers (150 miles) over typically six days (including a rest day) - or more. Water and tents are supplied, but competitors have to carry everything else with them, food, clothes, medical supplies, suncream ...... Medical supplies are dominated by diverse treatments for the feet - photographic reporting of the event includes some truly gruesome images of sand-flagellated feet. And the competitors pay for this masochistic pleasure - if you wish to sign up for next year's event, put aside over $4000. However, the event is a a major means of obtaining sponsorship and it raises significant amounts for a variety of charities.

This year, more than 800 lunatics from all over the world entered the race (I'm not sure exactly how many finished, but it's generally around 80%). But they and the organisers were in for a surprise - torrential rains caused widespread flooding, swamping the camp at the start resulting in the runners being evacuated to hotels in the nearest town. The race eventually got underway, but was shortened. And the rain completely changed the ground conditions, wet sand being a very different material from dry sand. At the start, the eventual winner, the Moroccan Mohamad Ahansal, commented that "because of the rain, the ground is less soft. And, as you know, it is easier for runners to take a clear lead on sand surface. It will be harder than last year...." (which he won also). One surprising consequence was that he and a group of other old hands decided to avoid the sodden wadis and head for the dunes - promptly getting lost. They added several kilometers to their first stage.

Mohamad won the shortened event in a time of 16 hours and 27 minutes, with his older brother Lahcen fighting back but not making it into the top ten. However, Lahcen is truly the old hand - he has won ten of these ultramarathons and had beaten his brother into second place seven times (although they had a habit of crossing the finishing line together - see photo, right). It's Mohamad, however, who holds the record for the event: in 1998 he covered the 137 miles of the Marathon des Sables in 16 hours and 22 minutes, 29 seconds - which seems to me to be an average speed of around eight and a half miles per hour. He is, understandably, in the Guiness Book of Records. This year, for the women, the winner was Touda Didi, also Moroccan, also the winner of last year's race. Incredibly, a 60 year-old, Marco Olmo, came in in 12th place in the general men's rankings; the oldest person ever to complete the race was 78. They do say that it's as much a challenge of mental stamina as a physical one.

It's likely that few of the competitors are geologically inclined, and, even if they were, other priorities might absorb their attention. But the landscapes through which the Marathon des Sables passes are spectacular - here's a Google Earth image of the setting for one of this year's stages.

 

[The photo at the top is from the Royal Air Force Team in an earlier event, http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive.cfm?storyid=0BA59D3A-1143-EC82-2ECFDC433CA32B3F; for more on the Marathon (including entry forms for next year, should you wish), see http://www.saharamarathon.co.uk/index.html and http://www.darbaroud.com/index_uk.php]

Rugby: England 34, France 10

Right, a new category for this blog - sport. I tend, not surprisingly, to collect images that use sand in any way, and the picture above comes from an advertising campaign last summer by the major sponsor of the English Rugby team. The campaign was designed to promote interest in the game amongst the country's youth by setting up beach festivals where England players would show up, sometimes in exotic costumes. The campaign culminated on an urban beach in London. Now, given that English rugby had just suffered a series of humiliating defeats in the southern hemisphere over the summer, it struck me that an image of the sport based on sand, not the most tough or durable construction, might stand me in good stead for the winter internationals (although, of course, I hoped not). After further defeats and endless hand-wrung column inches in the press, and accusations flung around about the ability of the new coach and manager to coach and manage, we came down to yesterday's match, always one of the high profile and emotional conflicts, England versus France. Aha, I thought, time for the resonance of my sand image. And I'm in France right now, so, for a match billed in advance as "le crunch," I was prepared for putting up with the far-from-impartial enthusiasm of the French TV commentators, the triumphant headlines in today's newspapers.

BUT, in an extraordinary game, England not only won, but, to put it bluntly, thrashed the French (they were leading 29-0 at half time). The headline in the sporting press is shown below. In other reports "le crunch" became "le crash," and humiliation was a commonly used word. So, it was just a game, and does not necessarily signal the renaissance of English rugby - but what a game!

I should mention, for American readers, that yes, rugby is peculiar in some ways (being required to throw the ball backwards does not make immediate sense), but it is a great sport. I am, after all the years I spent in the States, a fan of American football (should I admit, the Philadelphia Eagles?), but I remain an ex-rugby player at heart; and you could watch two rugby matches in the time it takes to get through one NFL game.  

And one more connection between rugby and sand. Points can be scored by kicking the ball between the posts, the ball being placed these days in a kicking "tee." But it was not that long ago that the ball would be set up for the kick by an assistant running on to the pitch with a bucket of sand, out of which the kicker would build a small pile into which he would carefully embed the ball.