Published on
January 13, 2025 at 6:00:00 AM PST January 13, 2025 at 6:00:00 AM PSTth, January 13, 2025 at 6:00:00 AM PST
Tips From The Pros
GRANT TRENBEATH: MY JOURNEY TO THE MAJORS (PART 1)
Early on, and for several years, our annual meetings consisted of MLB and NFL Groundskeepers, and we would usually meet at the same time and in the same city as the STMA National Conference. I remember working with Darian Daily back in 2002-2003 organizing the 2003 MLB/NFL symposium agenda in San Antonio, TX. Eventually the MLB Groundskeepers and NFL Groundskeepers branched off from one another for our respective meetings. The two groups continue to meet annually, but in different cities and at a time that is convenient for each group, and COVERMASTER® continues to be a sponsor. I would like to thank COVERMASTER® for all their support getting our meetings off the ground and continuing to support our groups for all these years.
The annual MLB Groundskeeper meetings have provided a great opportunity for MLB Groundskeepers to get together in person (or virtually in 2020) and to discuss several topics as part of our agenda. We have had numerous people come and present to us in the past: MLB umpires, representatives from both Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, past Major League players, managers and coaches, weather service providers, University/college professors, data collecting and analysis service providers, concert production consultants, turf chemical experts to Rawlings bases representatives. The program has always been great and informative over the years. However, to me, the most educational aspect of the meetings has always been the time spent with my colleagues, and hearing firsthand from them the challenges they have come across and how they have handled them, and what ideas they might implement the next time they face that challenge. These colleague discussions take place over a table while eating breakfast before the meetings, at lunch in between meetings, on the bus rides going to various places, at dinner, after dinner at the hotel or nearby bar, or after the bars have closed, back in someone’s hotel room or over a Denny’s table with a plate of “Moons over My Hammy” in front of you at 2:30 in the morning. I always felt like I needed/wanted to be the last one to go to my room to sleep each night/morning because I did not want to miss hearing something somebody else had to say about dealing with something which I could take back with me, and potentially apply to a challenge I could come across. This sharing of information has been invaluable to me over my career and has created many life-lasting friendships.
Now a little about me. I grew up in a baseball home. My father, Bill, grew up on a North Dakota farm, played baseball through college (his Whitworth College baseball team would win the NAIA National Championship in 1960), and would become the Head Baseball Coach at Willamette University in Salem, OR (1974-’86) and later the Athletic Director (1988-2000). My mother, Maxine, was the ultimate Team Mom, baking brownies and bringing snacks and drinks for in between double header games, and keeping score during the games. I grew up in Salem during this time playing baseball and eventually would earn a scholarship to play baseball at NCAA Division 1 University of Portland as a switch-hitting infielder. However, after a medical redshirt year in which I had my right throwing shoulder operated on by Tommy John surgery inventor Dr. Frank Jobe, I would transfer back to Willamette University and play four years there (2000-2003). Growing up in a house with a transplanted North Dakota farmer who was now a baseball coach, I spent a lot of time working on my dad’s farm, the Willamette University baseball field (and on the University of Portland’s baseball field during my one year there). My parents bought me a 10-speed bike to ride down to Willamette’s baseball field during the summer and take care of the baseball field and prep the field for summer games when I was 12 years old, and that was my summer job each year growing up. Part of the reward for working on the field and creating a great playing surface, was being able to play on the field myself with my teammates growing up. Lots of life lessons were learned while working and playing on the Willamette University baseball field. Also, this is where I started to develop my work ethic and attention to detail, as well as training and coaching others.
When I was 19 years old, my father, an architect friend of ours Phil Settecase, and myself took a weekend trip down to Oakland to watch the A’s play the Yankees, but the real purpose of the trip for me was to spend the weekend on the field with the A’s Grounds Crew and Head Groundskeeper Mark Razum. This trip planted the seed to try to be the best Groundskeeper I could be, with the dream/thought of potentially making a career as a Major League Groundskeeper. Since I was still playing baseball, my first choice would have been able to play baseball professionally, but if that did not work out, the next best thing for me was to be a Major League Baseball Head Groundskeeper. My playing career ended after my Willamette tenure, and as it turned out, Mark Razum helped me land my first professional Groundskeeper job for the Southern Oregon A’s at Miles Field in the short season Northwest League in Medford, OR. I worked in Medford for three summer seasons, 1992-1994, which culminated in winning the “Field of the Year” award for the Northwest League in 1994. After finishing the 1993 summer season in Medford, I came down to Phoenix and worked for the Oakland A’s through the 1994 spring training at Phoenix Municipal Stadium and Scottsdale Community College under longtime A’s Groundskeeper Clay Wood and then returned to Medford, to work my final season there. At the end of the strike shortened 1994 season, Mark Razum moved to Denver to open Coors Field for the Rockies, and Clay Wood was promoted up to the Coliseum in Oakland to work for the A’s and Raiders. That is when I was hired by the A’s to come down from Medford to work at Phoenix Municipal Stadium and oversee the final part of construction of Papago Park, the then new minor league home of the Oakland A’s. It was with the A’s at Phoenix Municipal Stadium and Papago Park that I got to work with future MLB Head Groundskeepers Scott MacVicar and Chad Mulholland, future MLB Assistant Head Groundskeepers (which includes my Assistant for the last 27 years with the Dbacks) Karl Gant, Steve Dedo, Derk McCulley and James Sowl, and Major League Groundskeepers Manny Lugo, Travis Dray, Kevin Burr, and Scott Watson. The Oakland A’s produced a number of MLB Head Groundskeepers during this stretch that Oakland A’s GM and President Sandy Alderson commented that they had developed more Big-League Groundskeepers than they had starting pitchers. I was interviewed for the Dbacks job at Chase Field during the summer of 1997, and would accept their offer and start working for them on October 20, 1997, and oversaw the original construction of the field before the inaugural 1998 season. Being a Head Groundskeeper on a baseball field has basically been the only job I have ever had.
I have been blessed during my career with establishing relationships/friendships with numerous other experts in the profession/industry to which to draw information/opinions from that have helped me form my own Groundskeeping philosophy/program. I am extremely grateful for these relationships/friendships, as they have helped me become the person I am today, and I continue to be dependent on some of them. Besides my parents and the Groundskeepers I’ve listed previously, this list includes current and former MLB and NFL Groundskeepers (too numerous to list here but includes MLB Groundskeeper Hall of Famers George Toma, Steve Wightman, and Gary Vanden Berg), current and former minor league baseball Groundskeepers, the owner of the Southern Oregon A’s Fred Herrmann and his wife Dixie, numerous former members of Grounds Crews that I have been a part of, former MLB and minor league players and coaches, numerous Golf Course Superintendents, university and college Groundskeepers, city/high school/parks Groundskeepers, high school and college baseball coaches, fertilizer sales reps (Dennis Kemp, John Morehouse and Jim Derr to name a few), irrigation reps (Mike Lamson, Brad Godaire and DJ White), equipment sales reps (Ron Converse, Dale Getz, Paula Seifert, Boyd Montgomery, Cory Niehaus and Matt Gardner), warning track/clay/soil reps (Jon Hubbs, Bill Paprocki and Luke Yoder), Turface reps (Joe Betulius and Jeff Langner), flooring and field covering experts with COVERMASTER® (Bob and Ken Curry and Thomas Bell), hand tools and drag supply reps (Brent Nitsche), sod company reps (Joe Traficano and Danielle Scardino), as well as Oregon State University’s Dr. Tom Cook, the University of Arizona’s Dr. Dave Kopec, and Toro’s Dr. James Watson. (Look out for the April 2025 Issue Where I discuss the Inaugural Season at Chase Field.)
Posted January 14, 2025