Five years ago, John Turnour came to Washington as the Nats’ head groundskeeper, and introduced something new to the Nationals Park diamond: a Curly W on the back of the pitcher’s mound.

“Kind of putting your stamp on the mound,” Turnour explained. “We had a game a couple weeks ago when we didn’t have time to get it out there, because we were rushing around with some rain. And it just kind of looked bare out there without it.”

The Curly W is actually made of the same stuff as the rest of the mound, a substance called Diamond Pro Infield Conditioner. It comes in a few basic colors, and Turnour’s crew has used one color brown for the mound, and a darker shade for the Curly W. Some visiting pitchers try to blot out the W with their foot or their hand — “just to mark their territory,” Turnour speculated — but during most games, the W makes it through nine innings intact.

Starting with the last homestand, though, the W changed. At least three Major League teams put a colored version of their logo on the mound, according to Turnour, and someone in the Nats front office suggested that the Curly W might look good if it was in Nats red.

Now, the groundskeeper had tried this two years ago and wasn’t completely happy with the results, so he stuck with the darker brown color. This time, he spent a couple weeks experimenting with field paint, trying to get the exact right shade of red. When he got the color he wanted, he put the painted field conditioner on the mound, and then waited for approval from above.

And when everyone had given it the okay, the red Curly W debuted on Sept. 5.

“I think it looks good,” Turnour said. “It stands out….Whether it’s red or brown, it gets so much TV time with the center field camera. I just think it’s a nice look.”

The red Curly W is expected to remain for the postseason. Here’s what the old Curly W looked like.

(Via @primetimereds)