Es Con Field Hokkaido

This guide to Es Con Field Hokkaido, in Kitahiroshima near Sapporo, follows the puzzle behind its real Kentucky bluegrass turf, grass that has no business surviving six months of snow and below-freezing ground each Hokkaido winter. You'll hear how the Nippon-Ham Fighters set out to build a retractable-roof ballpark that would not give up on natural grass the way every earlier one had, and about the hidden network of piping that keeps the soil beneath the field at a livable temperature year round. It follows the glass wall behind the outfield, angled after wind and sunlight simulations to feed the turf below.