BANGOR – While the final six teams in the field for the 2006 Senior League World Series are being determined this week at venues from Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, to Salem, Ore., the field that will host 10 of the world’s best baseball teams of 15- and 16-year-olds also is taking shape.

Not that Mansfield Stadium ever gets really out of shape, but the more than 100 games the Bangor facility hosts each year does necessitate some rehabilitation in anticipation of the SLWS, which comes to Bangor for the fifth straight year beginning with opening ceremonies Saturday night.

“The field right now is close to being ready,” said Ron St. Pierre, who not only serves as the volunteer field director at Mansfield but this year is manager of the host Bangor team that will open pool play at noon Sunday against the yet-to-be-determined Canadian champ.

“By [Tuesday] all the sodding will be done, and by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest we hope to have all of the infield dirt back in place and have all of the new brick dust spread out on our warning track.”

The field actually has experienced a brief respite in recent days from the heavy volume of youth baseball games it hosts each summer, providing time for stadium workers to work their landscaping magic.

“One thing that’s really helpful is that once the teams get off the field, especially the Legion and [Junior and Senior League] state championships, where they play three or four games a day, Mother Nature takes over and because the field is Kentucky bluegrass it regenerates quite rapidly.

“But we can’t wait three or four weeks because we only have about 10 days between the last game and the first game of the Series, so we tend to put down a lot of sod. So far we’ve put down about 90 pieces of sod, which are 6 feet long by a foot and a half wide each, which is a lot of sod.”

Most of the re-sodding is done around home plate and near the pitcher’s mound.

In addition to the re-sodding, some 12 tons of Turface – the brand name for a crushed clay material applied to dirt surfaces to absorb moisture – was scraped away from the infield dirt. That material was taken to the nearby Bangor West Little League facility where it was re-applied.

“The weather this year was really in our favor,” St. Pierre said. “Because of the amount of rain we had we didn’t have to water the field as much, and we didn’t have the hot spots you get.

“Every field tends to develop hot spots, or areas where the grass is sparse and when the sun beats down on they really heat up and get progressively worse. We normally have to either top-dress those hot spots, aerate them, water them or a combination of those things, and we did not have to do that this year.”

The removed Turface will be replaced by a yellowish composite soil that comes from New Jersey.

“It’s the same material they use in most major league parks around the country,” said St. Pierre. “It’s about 20 percent clay, and after that the other 80 percent is mostly a silt and sand mix. People call it Georgia clay, but it really isn’t, it’s a mixture of materials they get from various parts of the country.”

The final phase of preparation will come Friday, when tournament-related logos are painted on the field.

“After five years, we’ve got it pretty much down to what we need to do,” said St. Pierre.

Regional tourneys continue

Two more Senior League World Series participants will be determined Tuesday at the U.S. South and U.S. West regional tournaments.

The U.S. Southwest champ will be crowned Wednesday, and the field will be filled out Thursday when the U.S. Central and East and Canadian qualifying tournaments are completed.

Those champions will join Falcon, Venezuela (Latin America), Brussels, Belgium (Europe-Middle East-Africa), Makati City, Philippines (Asia Pacific) and host Bangor in the 10-team field.