Sometime around midday Tuesday, Alan Sokolsky will pick up the phone and call over to the industrial-looking facility across the railroad tracks from Chase Field. Sokolsky, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ director of facility engineering, is calling with a heads-up.
The Diamondbacks are about to turn on the air.
By the time gates open more than five hours later, the ballpark should be a comfortable 75 degrees. Keeping it that way throughout the night, however, can sometimes prove difficult, a task complicated by many of the same challenges every household faces during a summer in Phoenix.
On most nights, Chase Field is a chilly oasis in the middle of a scorching desert. But there are times during the year when it can feel more than a tad warm, prompting complaints from fans on social media and players in the clubhouse, including some who have been forced out of action by body cramps they blame on the heat.
“We are making the best of a system that is over 26 years old and has been regressing year after year,” Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall said. “This is another example of why we need to find a solution and partnership to stay at Chase Field, which is our preference. The HVAC system is a top priority for an overhaul.”
When Sokolsky calls every afternoon, he is alerting Cordia, the company that operates the chilled-water plant just southeast of the ballpark, a green and white building with pipes that bend around the sides of the structure before disappearing down into the ground.
Cordia creates ice, cools water with it and then sends the water through the pipes — which run under the railroad tracks — to the ballpark. The water, which is between 38 and 42 degrees when it arrives, is used to cool the air that is pumped throughout the ballpark via 12 massive air handlers. Sokolsky said each air handler is equipped with eight chilled water coils that cool the air.
Think of it as a giant evaporative cooler, only with much colder water.
“It’s a pretty basic system,” Sokolsky said. “It’s just big.”
It also has its limitations.
“The length of time that you run it can determine how cool you can keep it near the end (of the game),” said Mike Rock, the Diamondbacks’ vice president of ballpark operations. “You can’t just run it for 15 hours and maintain that 75 degrees. At some point, the coils and all the frozen water on the coils runs out and the chilled water temperature that we get goes from 34 degrees to 45 degrees or warmer.”
Added Sokolsky: “You’ll feel that. It’s amazing what a difference four degrees of chilled water temperature will do.”
The Diamondbacks share the Cordia facility with a number of buildings throughout downtown, but they have the benefit of being “first on the push,” as Rock put it, given that they are closest to the plant. Still, the team alerts Cordia every time it is about to activate the cool air to give them a half-hour or so to prepare.
The Diamondbacks declined to say how much it costs to cool the ballpark over the course of a season.
Chase Field spans 1.3 million in square footage, and with gaps in the roof and dozens of doors that can open and close to let out cool air, maintaining a comfortable temperature can be tricky. That is especially true when certain variables are in play, like an especially hot or humid day or a packed house — such as the 46,183 in attendance Saturday night .
“It’s challenging when you have a 118-degree day,” Rock said. “There’s a huge difference between 118 and 102. Like, 100 degrees is a relief. Humidity in the area has a huge impact, too. When we had some really humid days in June, it was harder to cool the building.”
A few hours before first pitch, Chase Field is often at its coolest. Fans have yet to start streaming into the facility, and doors have mostly remained shut from the time the system was turned on. But after an hour of the gates being open, the temperature can rise a couple of degrees or more.
By the middle of the game, it can occasionally feel warm and muggy. Enough so that players believe it has been a factor in their health.
In three consecutive starts at home last August and September, right-hander Merrill Kelly left an outing due to cramping in his legs. On Saturday, right-hander Zac Gallen experienced cramps throughout his upper body and had to leave his start against the Phillies in the fifth inning. Both players have pointed to the heat as a likely factor.
“It’s the middle of August,” Gallen said Saturday night. “You guys know how it is here. It’s as hot as can be out. And we had a good turnout tonight, so with the extra people in the building, there’s a little less cool air to go around, maybe. It is what it is.”
Jordan Montgomery points out humidity at Chase Field
A couple of days earlier, Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery expressed surprise over how humid it can feel at field level.
“It’s like pitching in the jungle here sometimes,” he said.
Rock said the team has used third-party consultants to try to figure out the best ways to operate the system to keep the ballpark as cool as possible. Most nights, they succeed, but on nights such as Saturday, when the gates open in the middle of the afternoon and a huge crowd pours in, it can be too much to overcome.
“Very difficult to cool,” Hall said. “But we will continue to operate the system at full blast every game and look for temporary fixes for nights like that.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Inside Arizona Diamondbacks' struggle to keep Chase Field cool
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