I agree with you exactly though – to go to lengths to make sure the rest of the park is accurate and beautiful, just makes this seem more baffling. I’d even agree with lights, because you’re right – they probably would’ve been there at some point. Turf is just a huge pet peeve of mine. Plus, I’m wondering how it will hold up exposed to the elements. Rogers Center and Tropicana Field both have roofs to block out bad weather. I remember it being in those cookie-cutter parks (Three Rivers, Riverfront, etc.) but the high walls probably provided some level of protection from the elements. I’m just wondering how easy it is for that rubber filler to wash away (and to subsequently need replaced) although I’d have to look into it more, as well as finding out exactly which type of turf they plan to use.

In the meantime, I’m just amazed at the rationale for this:

“Paul Volpe with City Architecture said the ball field will have artificial turf.

‘So, we can play early in the Spring and late into the Fall. And, it will be very maintainable and durable …’ ” (From the Fox 8 item on the groundbreaking.)

Hard to even know where to begin on this comment. How “early in the spring” would anyone think it would be possible to play, given the weather? The Indians are able to play on grass, as soon as early April. Isn’t that soon enough? Late into the fall? LIke when — around Thanksgiving? The first part of December? There’s no reason in the world why anyone would need to play baseball in Cleveland outside the traditional period of April-October. (Fine, if the Indians were get to a World Series, and Selig’s schedule has Game 7 planned for early November, there’s a happy exception.)

But wow. And the idea that grass wouldn’t be “maintainable” enough is beyond ridiculous. Where is there a precedent for a restoration this short-sighted?

What truly galls me about this is that I’m sure there would be city officials and others who would say that a complaint of this kind is nitpicking, and that it’s a miracle that the project is being undertaken at all. The problem is, if you’ve gone to the trouble of putting home plate where it was historically; extending the height of the right field wall to match the original, and other sophisticated details, you don’t compromise on something as simple to recreate as the playing surface. If you’re going to compromise, you do it on something that’s prohibitively expensive, or some obvious improvement that eventually would have had to be made if the original had stayed in use — like lights. (I always wondered what would have happened if the city never got the idea for Municipal Stadium, and the Indians ended up making the adjustments that were made to Shibe Park, Forbes Field and other League Park contemporaries.)