How to dry a wet baseball field? A helicopter

There was an article about this in the paper recently, and I liked it as an example for a couple of reasons.

Of course first and foremost this is a fun example of getting out of a “how” trap.  The outcome, the what, that is needed is a dry field, and in the absence of a roof or tarps to prevent the field from getting wet, they then had to dry the field, and the “how” that is ordinarily used there is various forms of rollers or squeegees with lots of people on the grounds crew pushing the water off the field.

Here, someone decided to do some rethinking and figured that a helicopter in some senses is a giant blower and that might get the job done.  Judging from the articles, it looks like it didn’t work, but it’s an innovative way to get to the outcome needed.

The other piece that I like about this is the financial side.  When I showed the picture to my friend Don, he said “that’s a pretty expensive way to dry a baseball field.”

True.

However, the people were already at the stadium, and while the concession stands were probably doing a great business selling peanuts and candy and cracker jacks, the cost of rescheduling a game of this size is very high.  So I like that someone took a chance at something that seems outrageously expensive, in an effort to avoid a much higher cost.  Again, it’s a shame it failed, but in the scheme of things, a $5,000 helicopter fee is peanuts in the overall scheme of things.

-Ric