They Talk a Turf Game

Six recent UMass graduates work on Fenway Park grounds crew

It’s the afternoon of a Red Sox night game, and vendors are scraping their grills and stacking tee shirts on Yawkey Way outside Fenway Park. A gaggle of middle school students is narrowing through the tour gate, and three people stand at the ticket window, first in line for the 7 p.m. opening pitch.

Inside the park, a few Texas Rangers warm up and the Red Sox grounds crew gather near the “alley,” the opening in the stands that is their home base. fenway ground crew. Out of the thirteen guys hired by director Dave Mellor for his grounds crew, six are recent graduates of UMass Amherst programs. Two, Nate Salmore and Kevin Martell, graduated from the two-year Stockbridge School turfgrass management program this spring and will return to UMass Amherst this fall to enter the College of Natural Resources and the Environment.

“We take care of everything on the field, including the skin,” explains Salmore, wearing the red polo shirt of the grounds crew. He adds, “That’s the infield dirt.” Salmore is the newest recruit, but today he’s on the DL, with stitches on his chin where he cut it yesterday rolling out the tarp for rain.

“The tarp takes someone out every time we roll it,” says Martell, his eyes smiling but his voice serious. “It’s fairly dangerous.”

“It’s slippery, and you’re working fast,” says Salmore. It takes 20 guys about three minutes to roll out the tarp and put down pipes for water. Fenway is the only major league ballpark without automatic irrigation.

Working for what they call a “perfect presentation,” the crew paints foul lines and batters box lines and makes sure the slope on the mound meets specs. They patch divots at home plate and on the mound, which are almost all clay. On the skin, which is a blend of clay, sand, and silt, they use nail drags to “scratch up the surface and help water penetrate the soil,” says Salmore. “And we use flat metal drags to level uneven areas of the skin.”

They repair the bullpens and set up batting practice, laying Astroturf over home plate and rolling out a pitching platform. These are removed for the game, and practice bases are replaced with game bases.

In front of the Green Monster, where the microclimate can be 5 or more degrees hotter from the heat coming off the metal, says Salmore, they may have to “syringe” the field with a hose.

And of course there are Mellor’s famous patterns to mow and roll in the turf. Author of two acclaimed books on the topic, Mellor is one of the country’s leading experts in turf care and design.

“For narrow lines, we use the walk-behind mower,” explains Martell. “For wider lines, we use the bigger sidewinder.”

Do they measure to get the lines right?

“Not much,” says Martell. “For most patterns, it’s just practice.”

“Looking at a point in the distance helps,” offers Salmore.

“For a complicated design,” says Martell, “like the American flag, we might use irrigation flags for more precision.”

To get on the Red Sox grounds crew, Martell and Salmore filled out applications and were interviewed. Mellor called Salmorefenway ground crew and invited him to apply after he saw a scholarship application that Salmore had completed on which he’d checked a box saying that he was looking for summer work.

“At Stockbridge,” says Martell, “they tell you, ‘Don’t settle for working at any old place. Apply to where you want to be. It’s what you’re going to school for.’”

Top photo – UMass students and grads on the Fenway Park grounds crew (left to right):
Jason Griffith, Andrew Walsh, Kevin Martell, Joel Strautin, Nate Salmore.

By Deborah Klenotic. Photos by Ben Barnhart.

July 13, 2004.

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