GRANT TRENBEATH: THE FIRST SEASON IN PHOENIX (PART 2)

When I first took the Head Groundskeeper job for the Dbacks in 1997, Bank One Ballpark was the first MLB stadium with natural grass and a retractable roof. We were the guinea pig of MLB retractable roof/natural grass stadiums (Seattle, Milwaukee, Houston, and Miami would follow, plus some NFL stadiums would follow that opened with retractable or removeable fields in Houston, Phoenix and eventually Las Vegas). The first year we installed DeAnza zoysiagrass, that was recommended from Steve Cockerham and the turf research team at the University of California Riverside. The Dbacks had given the UC Riverside turf department some money a couple of years in advance of the Dbacks Opening Season to research and develop a turf that would best be able to handle the heat of the Arizona summer climate, the limited sunlight from the retractable roof, the roof closures and the air conditioning, as well as the wear and tear of what an 81 game Major League Baseball schedule could potentially do. They also tested different sources of artificial light, that included distance, angle, area covered, and wattage of various light sources to see what would help the turf grow the best, with a consideration for the overall cost of fabricating a mobile alternative light source to help the grass grow inside the Ballpark. Prior to the initial installation of the playing field, I went over and toured the UC Riverside turf facility and saw all the different tests and studies they were doing on various species of turf grasses. I was extremely impressed with all the tests and hypothetical light and wear conditions in which they were subjecting all the plots of various turf grasses to. They were breaking down and studying more aspects of growing grass than I had ever done while working out on an actual baseball field. I found all their work to be fascinating and was coming up with questions about growing grass I had never thought of before.

During that first season in 1998, we ended up resodding around 100,000 sq ft of turf, which was equal to the amount of sod for the entire playing field. That being said, we didn’t resod the entire playing field once, but rather certain traffic areas of the field multiple times during that season, such as around the homeplate area and pitching mound (of course we had the dirt pathway in between the mound and homeplate, so we saved on having to replace sod there), 1st and 3rd base umpire spots, 2nd baseman and SS spots on the back arc of the infield, 1st and 3rd base cutouts on the infield, 1st and 3rd base coaches boxes and areas where baserunners round the bases, on-deck areas on sidelines, the LF and RF outfielder spots, some areas in the LF and RF corners where pitchers would warm up and play catch, and we had a warning track strip of grass at the base of the outfield wall, and we had to resod the grass that was under the two overhangs in CF during the middle of the season. The Grounds Crew and I would rip out sod and prep the areas for sod immediately after the final game of a homestand and would have sod delivered and installed first thing the next morning. It was during one of these times, right after a homestand had finished, I was walking the field with Steve Cockerham and determining what areas we would resod again, when Steve mentioned to me that he could have never imagined the amount of wear and tear we were getting. I have a ton of respect and admiration for Steve Cockerham and the turf research team from UC Riverside and all of the trials and studies they did, but it was in this moment, that I started to make decisions for the Ballpark turf based on my personal firsthand experience on the actual field and asking/learning through the actual experiences of my colleagues in their Stadium climates. That became the most valuable teaching/learning method for me. That is not to take anything away from turf programs and classes around the country, or Steve Cockerham and the UC Riverside turf research team, education is invaluable. However, drawing from real life application experiences has always been the best method of learning/training for me. I would continue to run different tests and experiments in small portions of the field or bullpens over the years to try and learn more about our growing environment and evolve our maintenance practices.

We resodded the field before the 1999 season with a straight Kentucky bluegrass/perennial rye grass mix after hosting Monster Truck and Moto Cross dirt events in January 1999. Our thought process was to see how long the Blue/rye mix would last with the air conditioning and with the development of more heat tolerant rye grasses. We ended up resodding the infield turf before the homestand before the All-Star break, and the rest of the field during the All-Star break with BullsEye Bermuda grass, which would be promoted as BobSod. The second half of the 1999 season was successful, and we created a USGA sand-based sod farm locally from which we would draw from through the 2017 season. We resodded the baseball field before every season with overseeded BobSod from this sod farm and would work a transition during the season. Quality of the BobSod began to decline over the years and we tested out some Bandera and Platinum Paspalum on the field during the 2017 season. We installed non-overseeded Platinum Paspalum on the entire field for the 2018 season. The 2018 season was our best grass year in the Ballpark. The Dbacks would receive the MLB defensive team of the year award that year, and we received numerous compliments from visiting team's coaches and players, as well as from Dbacks coaches and players.

Before the 2019 season, Chase field converted over to synthetic turf, and we were the first Major League Baseball team to use the Shaw Sports Turf B1K system, which utilized a Geofill infill composed of crushed coconut shell and ground up cork, which needs to be watered periodically. We were guinea pigs for other MLB Baseball Stadiums all over again. The Texas Rangers new ballpark Globe Life Park would open a year later with the same Shaw Sports Turf system, as well as the Miami Marlins would convert their natural grass field over to the Shaw Sports Turf system for the 2020 season.

I have listed numerous relationships and people I am thankful for in this piece, and I am doing some people an injustice because I cannot list them all here. However, if I am making a list of people to single out and thank, my wife of 26 years, Trina, and my two daughters Annika (20) and Tea (16) need to be acknowledged. Trina and I first started dating at Willamette University and continued dating while I was working in Medford. She eventually followed me to Phoenix when I went to work for the A’s after she had finished school. I waited until I had a Major League Baseball Head Groundskeeping job before I proposed to her, and we were married during the first offseason in November of 1998. She saw what the life of a Groundskeeper’s spouse was like before we were married, not always being the priority, yet she has stuck with me for all these years. She has never asked me to choose between my job and something else. Both of my daughters were born during the baseball season. My oldest daughter Annika was born in August 2004, and I missed an entire homestand series against the Pirates when she was born. It was the first time I had missed a game since I had started, and I missed 3 games in a row. My youngest daughter Tea was born just after Opening Day in 2008, but she came while the team was on a road trip in Cincinnati. I would later miss my fourth game in 2022 when my daughter Annika graduated from High School. My family’s lives have revolved around baseball, and they and I have made too many sacrifices to count over the years to accommodate the profession, both in season and offseason. Yet, they saw and recognized my love and passion for the job and continued to support me, and the hours required to try to fool Mother Nature to get grass to grow indoors or work numerous outside, baseball, and non-baseball field events. My wife Trina has been a mother “and then some” to both of my daughters with all the hours I was not around the house, but at my job instead. My wife hung a sign in our house that read “We interrupt this marriage for baseball season,” which has been very appropriate.

I look forward to writing pieces for COVERMASTER® that will be more Groundskeeping centered in the future. If you have any specific questions you would like answered, please let COVERMASTER® (tips@covermaster.com) know so they can forward them onto me, and I will try to answer them, potentially with a story or two while answering. I would like to end this piece by asking (reminding) you to make sure to tell your colleagues, tell your friends, tell your fellow Crew members, tell your vendors and contractors, but especially tell your family, that you are thankful for them and appreciate everything they do.

Posted April 15, 2025