Excitement is growing for honest-to-goodness real grass

Fort Morgan, Colo., is perhaps best known for its Christmas parade on the day after Thanksgiving. But in recent months, a new tourist attraction has popped up in the eastern Colorado town, drawing people from around the state and as far away as Minnesota.

It's no white buffalo or five-legged calf, but what people are flocking to see might seem almost as mythical to Minnesota baseball fans:

A natural grass playing field for the Minnesota Twins.

On Monday, after almost three decades of waiting for Twins fans, workers will begin transplanting that Colorado-grown turf to Target Field, the team's new ballpark set to open next April in downtown Minneapolis.

"When the natural grass goes in, this goes from being a project to being a ballpark," said Kevin Smith, communications director for the Twins.

The turf has been cultivated at Graff's Turf Farms in Fort Morgan, an hour from Denver. This morning, beginning about 4 a.m., workers will start harvesting it, rolling it up and placing it in a convoy of refrigerated trucks for transport to Minneapolis for installation this evening.

Workers will repeat the process on Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday morning, the Twins and their fans should have a natural grass playing field for the first time since 1981.

Legions have longed for the day when the team could switch back to playing baseball outdoors on a natural grass field. On the Twins' website, fans last week were getting downright emotional about the prospects of real grass.

"I might cry the first time I go," wrote one fan. "I might too," chimed in another. "It's gonna be amazing."

"We're excited," said Kerry Glade, sales manager of Plaisted Co., which is providing the soil materials for the new ballpark. "We're excited that they went with a natural turf field instead of a synthetic one. We think it will be much better overall for the baseball team."

Twins fans trek to Colorado

The grass has been growing on the Colorado farm for the past year. Months ago, much to the surprise of Graff's employees, Twins fans started showing up -- usually unannounced -- at the turf farm wanting a tour to see the new playing field.

Vocke said that among the visitors have been Twin Cities residents, former Twin Cities residents living in Colorado, even some grandparents who wanted to share their love of baseball with their grandson.

"Twins fans are fanatical," she said. "The fact they even knew our farm's name was pretty amazing." They apparently had gotten the information by following progress on the ballpark through the Twins' website.

"I'm sure the transition back to outdoor baseball has something to do with it," Vocke said. "With our other high-profile stadiums we have not had that kind of interest."

A heated field

About 110,000 square feet of turf will be used to install the field at the 40,000-seat stadium in downtown Minneapolis.

The sod will be Kentucky bluegrass meticulously grown to Major League baseball standards by Graff's.

About 10 inches below the surface, a heating system has been installed to warm the field in the early spring or the early fall of October, assuming the Twins season extends that far.

There also will be a drainage system installed that will allow as much as 20 inches of water per hour to be whisked away from the playing surface.

Glade said the company is using layers of sand, gravel, and a proprietary mix of sand and peat to provide a base for the new turf -- "layering it like a cake," he said.

About 18,000 tons of fill material was used to prepare the ground for the new turf.

"Natural grass captures people's imaginations," Smith said. "It's a living, breathing organism. Natural grass is the iconic thing of the baseball field."

And by week's end, it will be back.