A's: No rough in this diamond
Posted: Wednesday March 03, 1999 01:31 PM
By David Fleming, Sports Illustrated
PHOENIX -- There are seven small stadiums down here in the Cactus League,
and each one just seems to be more pristine, more immaculate and more
picturesque then the last. The A's train at Papago Park near the Phoenix
Zoo, a beautiful facility dotted by 15-foot cacti, in the shadow of some
red-clay foothills to the west.
The baseball fields here look like paintings. They are the diamonds of
diamonds. The chalk lines and bases are like white marble; the dirt is so
smooth it looks like brown tile; the grass fields are edged like
protractors, so perfect and green they make you want to take your shoes and
socks off and run around.
It's official, then. I have the worst case of lawn envy known to man.
Everywhere I look here it's one more example of what a failure I am as my
own groundskeeper. If your lot is anything like mine, the turf is thinning
quicker than Jim Kelly's 'do, the weeds have over taken the
mailbox and the only fertilizer is provided by the family dog.
So what the heck. I'm down here, so I thought I might as well ask the
experts.
"You've got to stay on top of your lawn, you've got to get a system
and stick with it," says Chad Huss, 25, the head
groundskeeper at Papago Park and Phoenix Municipal Stadium, where the A's
play their games. "You've got to fertilize once every six weeks,
you've got to water five times a week, and give it a good soak, not just
some quick sprinkle."
That's easy for Huss to say -- he's got an 11-man staff that grooms and
maintains five fields and two half-fields. He keeps his mom's lawn just as
nice back home in Wisconsin, but apparently Huss is just too freakin' busy
to fly to North Carolina with his staff and fix my lawn. "I've got a
pool and a pond out back," I say, trying to entice him with some words
from Caddyshack.
No dice. Oh well, I can learn to love weeds, I really can. Huss spreads
pure iron over the turf and uses a more granular type fertilizer in order
to keep his "blades" (that's groundskeeper-speak for grass) extra
green. He does not -- repeat, NOT -- use spray paint to keep his blades
perfectly green. "That's cheating," he says. "A lot of
people do that but not me."
Originally from Appleton, Wis., Huss completed a golf-course-management
program at a technical college three years ago (we're talking complicated
chemical compounds, photosynthesis and hydration equations), made one stop
in A-ball and then moved up to Phoenix. Groundskeepers advance just like
ballplayers, meaning our Chad is the Ben Grieve of grass.
During spring training Huss works about 70 hours a week for six straight
weeks. Every day, every field is watered, fertilized, edged, mowed, raked,
trimmed, rechalked and fine-tuned -- seemingly blade by blade with a little
pair of tweezers. I, on the other hand, employ the time-honored
rain-and-dog-poop method of hydration and fertilization handed down from
Fleming to Fleming since the great crabgrass virus of 1847. I edge by
getting real close with the mower, and if the stuff gets too high around
the lamppost I yank it out by hand. The more grass that dies, I figure, the
less I have to mow. That's how they do it at Yankee Stadium, right?
Huss just shakes his head. I should be ashamed.
On this day in 'Zona, the players have departed hours ago, and Huss and his
staff continue to work on the fields, which are so intricately mowed the
patterns in the grass look like one of those 3-D posters. Each one is also
named after an Oakland great like Catfish Hunter or Tony
LaRussa. "Don't get me wrong," says Huss, "aesthetics
are great, but the true signature of the field is how it plays. I care how
it looks but it means more to me that it plays with true bounces and no bad
hops. The thing I like the most is that the players love it."
The players love it. And the rest of us are just as green as Huss' perfect
grass -- with envy.
Sports Illustrated staff writer David Fleming will check in with
periodic Postcards from his tour of spring camps.
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