Brickman in Beijing

It started with a bare, clay-packed field in downtown Beijing. Two years later, it ended with three Olympic-caliber baseball fields on which, after 32 games in 10 days, South Korea took home the gold, Cuba the silver and the U.S. the bronze.

Murray Cook, baseball operations manager for the Beijing Olympics and head of the Gaithersburg, Md.-based Brickman Group’s sports turf services division, oversaw the project from start to finish.

To see a video of the making of the Beijing Olympic baseball fields, click here.

The Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field wasn’t Brickman’s first international project, or first Olympian project for that matter. Cook is a 27-year veteran of the sports turf industry, with expertise in field design, construction, maintenance and operations.
He’s also a sports facility consultant for the American Major League, universities
and municipalities, and an international consultant for the Olympic Games. Under his leadership, Brickman was head of the design, construction management and maintenance operations for all the baseball and softball fields for the 2000 Sydney games and the 2004 Athens games. This resume made Brickman a natural choice for the Beijing job, which included design, construction and daily maintenance of a practice field and two playing fields. 

“My experience working with Major League Baseball and the International Baseball Federation was part of our qualifications,” Cook says. “We know the requirements for fields of higher playing level than a typical recreation field, so we just became the right choice.” 

Despite the fact that China is not a “baseball country” - the country is home to only three permanent baseball facilities, Cook says - Brickman’s team had more than 120 eager volunteers and a hired staff of 30 locals to help with the expansive project. While communication was difficult, the passion was commendable. “Terms like pitcher’s mound and chalk box are not even part of the Chinese vocabulary,” Cook says. “But it was phenomenal to see how many people waited in line to volunteer for the Olympic preparation as a service to their country.” 

The biggest challenge was overcoming the communication barrier, Cook says. “Whether verbal or written, some things I would say would be translated into something else,” he says. “I just had to learn to be patient, endure mistakes and then learn from them.”

Ordering materials proved to be another challenge. With such different terrain, China simply didn’t offer some of the turf management materials Cook and his team needed to get the job done. As a result, specialized mowers were shipped in from California. Two gallons of Bermuda grass seed was shipped in from Oklahoma. Thirty-five tons of soil conditioner was shipped in from Texas - an order which took four months to arrive. Because of the 12-hour time zone difference, Cook was often on the phone with Beijing contacts and suppliers well past midnight Eastern Standard Time. “It’s difficult to coordinate things on the other side of the world,” Cook says. “The soil conditioner arrived on the morning of the first day of practice.”

China’s hot, muggy summer and harsh winter were less than desirable conditions for growing baseball-quality turf. Bermuda grass was the turf of choice for its hardiness and durability. The practice field was planted from seed, and one of the playing fields was created with 1,200 sprigs of turf planted in two-inch increments. The main playing field, which didn’t withstand the winter, was replanted with sod last May. “The weather conditions, particularly last year, were terrible,” Cook says. “But I can personally say they made great improvements to the air quality over the past year.” 

Cook made about 18 trips to China during the past two years to oversee progress and keep things on track. His team of three other Brickman employees, who also have professional sports turf management and international travel experience, joined Cook for five weeks before and during the Olympic games. The knowledgeable team, as well as other assets the Brickman Group has to offer, was imperative to a successful project. “At Brickman, we have expert resources - horticulturists, agronomists, landscape designers and architects - at our fingertips,” Cook says. “Having the right team in place is important to get a job of this caliber done right.” 

Despite all the hard work and the U.S. team’s third-place finish, the fields were slated to be torn down in September. The downtown Beijing property is simply too valuable to be dedicated to the foreign sport of baseball and is rumored to be used for office development in the near future. As Cook says, “China is definitely not a baseball country.”