BASEBALL
Bill Deacon, head groundskeeper, New York Mets, headlined an Infield Maintenance Clinic sponsored by the Sports Field Managers Association of New Jersey in 2011 at then Tiger Field. Photos on pages 24-26 courtesy of Bradley S. Park.
ry other day at 1.5-inch. The 1991 article concluded,“ Judging from the Tigers’ pristine diamond and winning record, feeling‘ almost like a pro’ has its advantages. Tiger Field, the 1990 high school / park / municipal Diamond of the Year, is a training ground, not only for hopeful ballplayers, but also perhaps for future sports field superintendents. It’ s a living classroom for students of the game, from the ground up.”
Soon after winning the Field of the Year award, Cipperly was presented with the New Jersey Turfgrass Association Recognition Award for 1992. Four years later, the National High School Baseball Coaches Association named Cipperly and his field as the Region 1 National Groundskeeper / Field of the Year for 1996.
The Field that Ray Built was named the SFMANJ Field of the Year for 2016. Ryan Radcliffe managed Cipperly Field in 2016, as well as the sports and grounds at five Magnet
School campus locations throughout Middlesex County. Radcliffe’ s professional baseball dossier included time spent with the Reading Fightin’ Phils( then Reading Phillies) and Lakewood BlueClaws. Scott Bills, CSFM, noted that efforts put forth by Radcliffe and his staff continued the tradition of excellence established by Cipperly and that,“ the result is arguably the absolute best high school baseball field in New Jersey.”
Four years later, Keith Fisher, whose professional resume consisted of time served as an assistant groundskeeper with the New York Yankees, was in charge of the Middlesex County Magnet Schools’ sports fields and grounds. Under Fisher, Cipperly Field was selected as the SFMA Field of the Year in the Schools and Parks Baseball category for 2020( SportsField Management, 2021). Fisher noted that“ Cipperly Field was held to a very high standard in the community and the stand- ard is maintained by being passionate about the success and playability of the surface— which rivals Minor League Baseball fields and compares to Major League quality.”
Today, in addition to East Brunswick Magnet School home games, Cipperly Field hosts the Greater Middlesex County( GMC) High School Baseball Tournament each May. Many in the local high school baseball community are well aware of Cipperly Field’ s national recognition. Vinnie Abene, head baseball coach of Edison High School and copresident of GMC Baseball Coaches Association, stated,“ We’ ve obviously known about this gem for the past 25 years or longer, and we look forward to playing as many games as possible on that field. It’ s well taken care of. The staff at East Brunswick Tech does an unbelievable job keeping that field in the best shape.”( Tufaro, 2020).
ANNUAL BLUEGRASS Throughout much of its history, annual bluegrass has been a longterm, nagging problem in the baseball outfield of Cipperly Field. Elevated cultural practices that are common in professional baseball— including a mowing height that has rarely exceeded 1.5-inch, automatic irrigation, and the supply of ample plant nutrition— are among the factors contributing to the persistence of annual bluegrass. As the grassy weed has taken hold— even where efforts have been made intermittently over the years to arrest the problem— the persistence of a significant annual bluegrass seed bank in the soil has allowed successive iterations of the population to reestablish.
24 SportsField Management | May 2026 sportsfieldmanagementonline. com