I recently heard a story on National Public Radio about a new partnership between Scott’s Miracle-Gro and Major League Baseball. Scott’s will soon be offering the same grass seed used on America’s favorite baseball fields to anyone who wants a piece of their favorite field at home. This raised a few questions for me.

The first question reveals my sentimental side – why isn’t the grass on major league ball fields the same as the grass found everywhere else? For me, baseball conjures up images of rag-tag teams in makeshift uniforms gathering in an unused lot or a rural field for a game and it seems like a far cry from history to have developed specialty grass for a sport with such humble beginnings.

Here’s my second question – who is buying this grass seed? While it’s not a priority for me personally, I can understand wanting a perfect lawn. Considering that the quality of the turf has a lot (if not everything) to do with the dedication of the people who maintain it, does it make sense to pay a premium for fancy branded grass seed if you’re still going to have to battle dandelions, moles, and all those other lawn-ruining nuisances? Will paying that premium make you more dedicated to maintaining your patch of green?

Then there’s the issue of practicality. Let’s say you’re a Boston native and you’ve grown up going to Fenway park. You have many great memories of afternoons spent watching games unfold over the perfect Fenway turf. Now let’s say that your job requires you to leave Massachusetts – you’ve been relocated to Tempe, Arizona.  How can you take your beloved ball field with you? It might be tempting to buy that premium Fenway grass seed, but the reality is, you’ll never succeed in recreating that space in such a vastly different climate.

So what about you? Are you dedicated enough to your lawn and your sport to give up a few extra bucks and commit yourself to a summer of ongoing maintenance to have your own piece of perfect Major League-branded turf? Or would you rather spend your summer going to ball games or putting an impromptu neighborhood game together in whatever free yard you can find? Personally, I’d rather be running the bases and kicking up dust in an empty lot, like our grandparents did before we had to buy back even our most innocent of pastimes