Steps to Building a Pitching Mound

Steps to Building a Pitching Mound
By guest author: Tauqeer Ul Hassan

There are some times when a person has heavy schedules like rejecting your kid's invitation for a basketball match in a court down town. Or maybe one just missed a baseball match because of being busy in other activities. One can learn how to make a pitching mound and it can be built in the backyard right away. A child will have an opportunity to practice on a pitching mound that will have the measurements same as the league in which he will play. In addition, having a pitching mound is a good place to practice throwing the mound during free time

First, the measurements of a live game pitching have to be taken and one has to be built accordingly. The diameter is normally 18 feet. A suitable spot has to be selected in the backyard and it has to be made certain that the land is level. The materials needed are rubber mat, sand, silt and clay.

An outline of the pitching mound needs to be drawn. For building the pitching mound, one inch thick layers of sand mixture have to be put on at a time. An equal amount of sand and clay have to be mixed in a container before dividing the mixture into equal parts. The first layer of mixture has to be laid out on the outline and a roller should be used to press down the soil until it gets firm. A stake has to be placed at the front point of the outline and a string has to be tied to it. The other end of the string has to be tied to another stake that is placed at the end point where it measures 17 inches from the front point. Another layer of soil mixture has to be added to the base and pressure should be applied so that the layers get flat to one inch per layer.

After this, the next step is to move the stake at the end point one inch to the middle. The layers of mixture have to be tramped each time they are laid down. Only one inch has to be added at a time until the pitching mound is 10 inches away from the ground.

For doing the final layer, measure 10 feet 6 inches from the front point and a stake has to be placed there. After this, measure 5 feet to the back of the mound and another stake has to be placed there. Four stakes have to be placed on the top layer to the left edge and another four stakes have to be placed to the right edge. Sand mixture of half an inch thick has to be laid out and it has to be pressed using roller until the soil is firm. Now, there will be a plateau that has a height of 10.5" from the ground with a width of 5'. A stake has to be placed in the centre point of the pitching mound. 2" has to be measured from the front point and the point has to be marked with another stake. Place the rubber mat 2" from the front point and it has to be rolled to the centre stake. In short, this is a basic guide to build a pitching mound.

You might also want to know how to build a pitching mound and how to build a pond.

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