Grass Versus Artificial Turf in Baseball: History, Injuries and Play

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

Why baseball moved to artificial turf in the 1960s, why most parks went back to grass, how the two surfaces change the way the ball behaves, and what is and is not known about injuries.

For its first century, major-league baseball was played on grass and dirt, and nobody thought of that as a choice. Then a domed stadium in Houston could not keep its grass alive, a synthetic carpet was laid down in its place, and for roughly a quarter of a century several National League clubs played on a surface that did not exist when the sport was invented. By the 1990s the sport reversed course. Today most major-league parks are natural grass again, and a few are not.

The surface matters more than it seems. It changes how fast a ground ball reaches an infielder, how far a ball rolls once it gets past one, how hot a player's cleats get in August, and which kinds of players a general manager wants. This article follows the history from the Astrodome to the present, explains how the two surfaces differ in play, and says plainly what the evidence on injuries does and does not show.

The grass default, and what it takes to keep it

Natural grass is a crop. Groundskeepers choose a grass variety suited to the climate: cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass in northern parks, and Bermuda grass, a warm-season variety, in the South and Southwest. They mow it in patterns, which is the reason an outfield sometimes looks striped, and they water it, trim it to a height that suits their team's style of play, and replace worn patches. A field that hosts 81 home games a year, plus batting practice, takes a beating.

Grass has two practical weaknesses. It needs sunlight and a climate it can tolerate, and it is vulnerable to rain, drought and heavy use. A park with a fixed roof or a roof closed for long stretches struggles to keep it healthy. Those weaknesses are exactly what led baseball to the invention that follows.

Houston, 1965 and 1966: the Astrodome problem

The Astrodome opened in Houston in 1965 as the first major-league ballpark with a roof over the whole field. It was built with a natural grass playing surface, and the roof included translucent panels so that sunlight would reach it. The panels created glare that bothered the players trying to see fly balls, so the panels were painted. The grass, deprived of light, died.

The solution for the 1966 season was a synthetic surface made by a chemical company, a nylon pile laid over a thin pad. It was named AstroTurf for the stadium, and the name became the generic term that people used for every artificial surface for decades afterward, whatever the manufacturer. The brand is a trademark, and the general term for the product is artificial or synthetic turf.

The first surfaces were not much like grass. They were closer to a thin carpet over a hard base, and the ball behaved on them in a way that surprised players and fans: fast, true and high bouncing.

The turf era: when a quarter of the National League played on carpet

Having shown that it could be done, other cities followed. The multipurpose stadiums built in the early 1970s, built to host baseball and football on the same field, typically put in artificial turf because it stood up to football cleats and required no growing season. Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh and Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia all opened with it, and by the late 1970s and 1980s a number of National League parks had artificial surfaces, among them those in Cincinnati, Houston, Montreal, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. In the American League, Kansas City, Seattle, Minneapolis and later Toronto played on it as well. Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium never did.

Veterans Stadium shows how long the experiment lasted. The Phillies played there from 1971 through 2003, a span of 33 seasons, and their best season attendance there was 3,137,674. Then they moved to Citizens Bank Park in 2004, which has natural grass.

The design of those parks produced a distinctive look. The playing surface was carpet from foul pole to foul pole, with dirt cut-outs around each base and the pitcher's mound and a circle of dirt at home plate. Between the bases, the infield was artificial turf. Later turf parks restored a conventional dirt infield, and the cut-out layout faded.

How the ball plays on turf

The difference between the two surfaces is easiest to describe by following a ground ball.

On natural grass, a ground ball slows down as it rolls. The blades and the soil absorb some of its energy, and a wet field absorbs more. On a well-kept infield the bounces are reasonably true but not uniformly so, and a stray pebble or a soft spot can change a hop.

On the old artificial surfaces, a ground ball came off a harder base and skipped faster. Infielders had to play deeper to get to balls and had less time once they reached them. A ground ball that would have been an out on grass could go through the infield for a single, and a ball hit into the gap in the outfield kept rolling to the wall, which turned some doubles into triples. A high-bouncing ground ball could clear an infielder's head.

Those differences created a style of baseball to match. Teams that had fast runners and good defenders could take advantage of the surface, and the best-known case is the 1980s St. Louis Cardinals under manager Whitey Herzog, whose teams were built around speed and defense and played on turf at Busch Memorial Stadium. The approach, sometimes called Whiteyball, is an example of a front office and manager designing a roster to fit a park. The point was not that the Cardinals had more talent, but that they had more of the kind the surface rewarded.

The table is a generalization. The newer surfaces, discussed below, play closer to grass than the old carpets did, and the dimensions, the infield dirt and the grass length at a given park all matter as well. The article on why ballpark dimensions differ explains why each ballpark plays differently.

Heat, hard landings and the injury question

Two complaints have followed artificial turf since it began. The first is heat. A dark synthetic surface in direct sun absorbs more heat than grass, which cools itself through moisture, and the surface can be noticeably hotter than the air above it. Players have long said that the field feels hot through their cleats. The size of the difference depends on the surface, the weather and the time of day, and this article does not give a figure.

The second is injuries. Players have said for decades that artificial turf is harder on legs, and the first-generation surfaces, a thin pad over a hard base, offered little cushion. Whether that translates into more injuries is a question researchers have studied far more in football than in baseball. The studies in baseball are fewer, and their results have been mixed: some analyses have found more lower-body soft-tissue injuries on turf and others have not found a clear difference once the type of surface, the park and the players' workloads are accounted for. A fair statement is that the evidence in baseball is not settled, that the modern surfaces are different from the old carpets, and that readers who need a firm answer should look at published sports-medicine research and the players' union's own statements.

Injury is also where this article has to stop being general and start being careful. Nothing in it is medical advice. A player, parent or coach who is concerned about a specific surface or an injury should talk to a doctor or a qualified athletic trainer, and, for youth baseball, to the governing body's published safety guidance. The Little League site is a starting point.

The shift back to grass

The turn began in 1992, when Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in Baltimore as a baseball-only park with natural grass and a deliberately old-fashioned design. It proved that a new stadium could be both profitable and loved, and the retro era that followed swept most of the turf parks away.

The replacements came in a wave, and most of them were grass:

The pattern had a business logic. Newer parks were built for baseball alone, so the football argument for a hard-wearing surface went away. Fans, players and the people who wrote about ballparks preferred grass. And advances in grass technology, including engineered sand-based soil, drainage and better varieties, made it easier to keep a field playable in bad weather, which took away one of turf's practical advantages. How parks are paid for and built is covered in a separate article.

Where artificial turf still lives

According to this site's own reference data, five of the 30 major-league home parks list an artificial surface: Chase Field in Phoenix, loanDepot park in Miami, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Globe Life Field in Arlington and Rogers Centre in Toronto. The other 25 list natural grass. The data is as of the 2025 season, and readers should check each club's page and the ballpark's own site for the current surface, since parks do change them.

The pattern among those five is a clue to why turf survives: every one of them has a roof. Tropicana Field's is fixed (hurricane damage to it in October 2024 sent the Rays to George M. Steinbrenner Field for 2025), and the other four are retractable and are closed when the weather is extreme. A roof limits the sunlight that grass needs. The roofs and domes article explains why a roof affects what can grow underneath it. A few retractable-roof parks do manage natural grass, and the site's data lists Houston, Milwaukee and Seattle among them, which shows it can be done with enough engineering.

The surfaces in use today are not the same product as the carpets of the 1970s. Infill systems, which use a mix of sand and rubber particles between the synthetic blades, are softer and more forgiving than the old pad-and-pile design, and they play closer to grass. Dirt infields have returned to the turf parks. Even so, the ball does not behave exactly as it does on grass.

Hybrid turf and what comes next

A third option sits between the two. Hybrid systems combine natural grass with synthetic fibers that are stitched or injected into the soil, so that the roots grow around the fibers and the surface holds together under heavy wear. They have been used most widely in soccer and football stadiums, where the field takes more punishment than a baseball field does. Whether and where a baseball club uses one is something to confirm with the club. The appeal of the approach is easy to see: it tries to keep the feel and the ball behavior of grass while improving how the surface survives weather and wear.

Spring training is another place where the surface question comes up in a different form. The Cactus and Grapefruit League parks mostly have natural grass, and the spring training article covers them.

Turf below the major leagues

Away from the majors, the story is more practical. Many high schools, colleges and youth leagues have installed artificial turf, because it can be played on soon after rain, needs far less upkeep than a grass field, and can be shared among sports. Those are real advantages for a program with a small budget and a field that has to serve several teams. The trade-offs are the ones this article has described: heat, the way the ball bounces, and the cost of replacement when a surface wears out.

For parents, the right approach is to ask the league or school what the field is made of and follow the governing body's guidelines and a qualified coach's advice on hot days and equipment. The guide to how Little League is organized is a good overview of the structure that youth leagues work within, and the site's youth section lists more.

Common questions

Who invented artificial turf for baseball? It was developed by a chemical company and first used in a major-league park at the Astrodome in 1966, after the grass there failed. The brand name AstroTurf came from the stadium.

Did every park in the 1970s have turf? No. A number of National League parks did, along with several in the American League, but Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium never did.

Is turf more dangerous than grass? The evidence in baseball is mixed and does not support a simple answer, and the modern surfaces differ from the old carpets. Anyone concerned about a specific field or injury should talk to a doctor or qualified trainer.

Why do some parks still use it? Roofs, climate and cost. A park that is often closed to the sun or that hosts many events can find turf easier to maintain.

What is hybrid turf? Natural grass reinforced with synthetic fibers in the soil. It is more common in football and soccer than in baseball.

Where to go next

To see why ballparks differ, read about ballpark dimensions and naming rights. For the history of how stadiums are paid for, see how a ballpark is built and financed. To understand how a short series changes with the park, read about the MLB postseason. You can browse every stadium on the ballpark topic page and the Citizens Bank Park page.