Yanmar America Corp. announced its continued sponsorship of the Atlanta Braves for the 2023 baseball season. At the start of the 2022 season, Yanmar provided four SA223 tractors for the Braves’ grounds management at Truist Park. These tractors come standard with Yanmar’s Dual Range HST Transmission and were specially equipped with a longer rear hitch for hauling wagons of batting practice items and field supplies. Two of the SA223s also had push-blocks mounted on the front and 12-foot straps attached to the rear, specifically designed to roll out and back up the protective tarp that covers the infield.
Yanmar also delivered a YT347 loader tractor with turf tires to load “top-dressers” with clay to repair and maintain the infield clay surfaces. Another YT347, nicknamed the beast, was also delivered with ultra-wide turf tires and custom-made wheels to run the aerator, which removes plugs of turf and soil from the field to allow fertilizer to be added and improve turf quality.
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.
