Editing Artificial turf (section)

==History==
David Chaney, who moved to [[Raleigh, North Carolina]], in 1960 and later served as Dean of the [[North Carolina State University]] College of Textiles, headed the team of [[Research Triangle Park]] researchers who created the first notable artificial turf. That accomplishment led ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'' to declare Chaney as the man "responsible for indoor major league baseball and millions of welcome mats."

Artificial turf was first installed in 1964 on a recreation area at the [[Moses Brown School]] in [[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence]], [[Rhode Island]].<ref name=Brady>Dave Brady, "It's All So Artificial: The Uncommon Ground", ''Petersen's 12th Pro Football Annual, 1972.'' Los Angeles: Petersen Publishing Co., 1972; pp. 62–65.</ref> The material came to public prominence in 1966, when [[AstroTurf]] was installed in the [[Astrodome]] in [[Houston]], [[Texas]].<ref name=Brady /> The state-of-the-art indoor stadium had attempted to use natural grass during its initial season in [[1965 Houston Astros season|1965]], but this failed miserably and the field conditions were grossly inadequate during the second half of the season, with the dead grass painted green. Due to a limited supply of the new artificial grass, only the infield was installed before the [[Houston Astros]]' home opener in April [[1966 Houston Astros season|1966]]; the outfield was installed in early summer during an extended Astros road trip and first used after the [[1966 Major League Baseball All-Star Game|All-Star]] Break in July.

The use of AstroTurf and similar surfaces became widespread in the U.S. and Canada in the early 1970s, installed in both indoor and outdoor stadiums used for [[baseball]] and [[American football|football]]. More than 11,000 artificial turf playing fields have been installed nationally.<ref name=Weeks/> More than 1,200 were installed in the U.S. in 2013 alone, according to the industry group the Synthetic Turf Council.<ref name=Weeks/>